


Shadowplay

by Windlion



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Action, Gen, Headcanon, Pitch is a BAMF, Pitchcentric, Post-Movie, Snark, moderate angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windlion/pseuds/Windlion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Pitch Black Got His Groove Back</p>
<p>Or the consequences of knocking the Nightmare King off his throne and forcing him to fight his way back up.  You would have hoped the Guardians had thought that through a little better.  He may not be the same Boogeyman at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Creepy keepsakes

**Prologue**

Creepy keepsakes.  _(Tooth experiences buyer's remorse.)_

 

After the battle there's one thing left to take care of, one thing that Toothiana can't quite put down despite the aura of festivities in the Santoff Claussen.

Not all lost teeth belong to children, and not all lost teeth from adults find their way to her at Punjam Hy Loo. There are many paths adult teeth take to the tooth palace,and each deserves its own treatment. Some, like many a matched set of wisdom teeth, find homes in custom boxes sidled up to their much smaller childhood counterparts. Some, however, demand special treatment.

"What is that?" Jack perches on his staff and peers over her shoulder, just to the side of her buzzing wings.

Some, like the one Toothiana can't stop scowling at. "Pitch's tooth."

"Wait, you kept it? That is seriously gross." Jack sounds halfway between genuinely disgusted and actually intrigued. Of course, he's a boy. "I guess it's like a trophy. What are you going to do with it?"

Toothiana shrugs, spinning the item in question between delicate fingertips. Clearly Pitch has never heard about flossing in any child's nightmares. The premolar is scraggly, discolored, brittle and worn with age. She's never handled an older tooth, come to think of it. She'd thought about leaving it, after the battle, but the Moon had glimmered and prompted her, _she'd paid for it_. All her fairies had paid for it, the poor things.

She could hardly ask one of her little sisters to carry this tooth, after the battle, so she collected it personally.  It's just possible, staring at the ugly little thing heavy with memories, that she might regret that. Absently, she peers at the black smears of dried blood at the roots. "It needs a locket."

"Wha- you're going to wear it around?" Jack kicks off his staff and leans forward to squint at the grisly relic. "Ew. That is disturbing, Tooth. Even if it does look kinda like a shark's."

"Not me." Toothiana blinks at him. "I don't know, it just needs a locket. Adult teeth are different, you know. They're full of memories, but they're not . . . not like a child's memories. Sometimes they don't fit in the same boxes. I've never met a tooth that wanted a locket before, but this one does."

Jack shifts awkwardly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "So. . . it's full of Pitch's memories?"

"I guess it'd have to be." Tooth minds her fingers on the sharp point and edges and wishes she had somewhere to put it now. Maybe she can ask one of North's yeti to make her the locket it needs?

"Do you think. . . do you think he's like me?" Jack can't even face her to ask, looking out across the moon on snow below. She can still see his expression in the reflection of the window.

"Oh. Oh, Jack." Tooth's heart aches at the barely-hidden emotion on the frost spirit's face. She can't forget how young he is. "I . . . I don't think so. The Boogeyman is very, very old."

She knew before, in the abstract, but holding just the one tooth, she knows it to her bones. This one tooth has layers and layers of black lacquered reminiscences; it needs its own home. And she worries it should not stay in Punjam Hy Loo. Its dark memories don't belong there amongst the bright gold lattices.

Nothing of the Boogeyman should be allowed to taint the purity the sisters of flight curated.

"If he's that old, maybe he's forgotten them." Jack still shines with the innocence she wants to protect. She can't bring herself to tell him that of them all, Pitch Black has long, long since passed the point of no return. "So what would happen if you gave them back?"

". . . I don't know." Tooth folds it out of sight and is grateful for the distraction of North and Bunny bustling back into the room, arguing about old familiar grievances.

 

She waits until Jack has left the next morning, riding the wind to visit the children of Russia, before she gathers the others and sets the newly-minted golden locket on the table between them.

"What is that?"

Sandy is the first to guess, and not the least bit happy about it. Tooth nods to him. "You're right, Sandy. It's Pitch's tooth."

North and Bunny exchange identical expressions of distaste on vastly different faces. Bunny eyes it like he expects it to bite him. "C'n I ask why you even kept that thing? Can't we just get rid of it?"

"Because it's important, somehow." Tooth wrings her hands nervously. "I don't know what to do with it."

North understands at once, "Ah, we would not ask you to keep it, Tooth."

Bunny tamps his foot, then frowns. "An' why did you wait until Jack was gone to ask? He's a Guardian, he should get a vote."

Tooth winces; she knew this would come up, but she's a little surprised to see it's Bunny who asks. "Because I already know what he'd do with it." She looks at all of them. "He wants to give it back."

"To Pitch?!"

North strokes his beard and hums, "Jack may have good point. If Pitch has forgotten. . ."

Sandy crosses his arms and floats an x over his head. Bunny stops spluttering and nods to the little man. "'m with Sandy. Don't know what yah think jogging his memory would do, but nothin' good can come of the thing."

Tooth hugs herself. "I don't know. It's not safe. I can't just destroy it, but. . ."

"Where can we keep it?" North drums his fingers on the table. "Santoff Claussen is a fortress, yes, but. . ." He casts one sideways glance at the elves toddling through the room with trays of cookies, leaving a destruction of crumbs behind them.

North turns to Sandy, and the golden man shakes his head vigorously. North sighs without any surprise, "Ah. Yes, we cannot ask this of you either, Sandy."

That leaves Bunny, staring at the locket sidelong like it's a snake. "Strewth. All right, all right. Fine. Better me than Frostbite. I'll take the mongrel's chomper to the Warren. Until we've got a better idea."

He opens an empty egg from his bandolier, scooting the locket into the middle and screwing the egg shut without ever touching it. His haunches shiver as he tucks the egg back away. "Just remember. I'm not keepin' the thing."

Tooth smiles her gratitude at him. "Thanks, Bunny. We won't forget it."

"I'm holdin' you to that, Tooth." Bunny looks across the room. "An' if that's everything, I'm going to go stash this rubbish right quick."

Even as Bunny stamps his foot and vanishes down the tunnel, Tooth knows she hasn't seen the last of it. It, like the Boogeyman, has only been shoved back beneath the bed. It's only a matter of time until both resurface, and the Moon only knows how long they have.

For now, the less she has to think about Pitch, the less she fears.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the last we'll see of the Guardians for awhile!
> 
> This is an experiment in headcanon. Not all of it's mine in origin: I have many a nod to ideas from the meme, and a special shout out on part one to Kay_Cricketed's "Long Shadows Follow" for cementing my conception of Pitch's lair. It's primarily Pitch-centric, and fair warning, the chapters may vary wildly in length. (Two and three are as short as they come.) If one were to infer BlackIce from some parts, I would certainly not say you're wrong, but it's predominantly gen. 
> 
> Many thanks to my beta Flidget, who says the best things and beats me with sticks when I need it!


	2. All-you-can-eat oblivion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bottoms up, lads.

**One**

All-you-can-eat oblivion. _(Bottoms up, lads.)_

 

Being the single host for a party of hundreds of nightmares, is not, you might imagine, a pleasant experience. Pitch has, quite rationally, blocked out the experience to the best of his ability. (He can lie quite convincingly that he has done so, and that is all that matters.)

The reality is this:

He is overrun, with snapping teeth and too-sharp hooves that are truly biting fears and gut-wrenching horror. He is overwrought, destroyed with terror. Hoisted upon his own petard, as it were, for far too long for him to put a name to it. It could be hours. It could be days. It could be seasons. It could be centuries.

They are his well-taught nightmares, of course, so it is a running battle, in his labyrinth beneath the surface where even the stairs do not know when they lead up or down.*  He has the illusion of escaping, over and over again, and yet knows full well each time it is a reprieve that will only end in him being cornered and taken down once more. They let him run for the thrill of the chase, the fear that makes his immortal, bloodless heart beat an erratic tattoo against the cage of his ribs.

They feast on the terror of anticipation as much as the act itself.

_Pitch knows all of this._

There is the briefest space between feedings when he makes his move, when one sated muzzle raises away and the next is a fraction of a second too slow to take its place. He swipes his claws across its black nose, rolling beneath the pawing hooves, and makes a mad dash for the stairwell. He is too exhausted to use the shadows, and the shadows promise no safety in this place of horrors. It should be _his_ place, but now Pitch can only fight to escape it. Fight to see the sun once more. Even the dim light of the moon would be welcome.

The irony is not lost on him.

Was that your plan, Man in the Moon? Render him so weak and helpless that even he would capitulate? He swears he won't. He is older than the fairies, older than the rabbit, older than the blithering idiots of fun and wonder. He will not be constrained, he will not beg. The king of nightmares, even when he's the feast of nightmares, does not bow to anyone.

He does not make it twenty steps in the direction he profoundly hopes is up before the nightmare he gouged stops squealing in pain, quits dancing madly in the arched door of the stairwell, and ceases being a blockade to its companions. Pitch clutches grimly at his ribs, breath hissing between his teeth, and flings himself just ahead of the first terror surging up (down?) the stairs.

He must be going up. He believes he is going up, and if he must move only a dozen steps at a time, then he will. He must.

Teeth snap at the shreds of shadow still hanging from his shoulders, and on the thread of _he will always fail, weak and alone and forgotten-_ he falls.

 

He is in a very different place, many, many repetitions later, collapsed and all but immobile in the center of an echoing room. He cannot see the vast cavern, but he can hear the snorts echo, the hungry hunting shrieks, the pawing of anticipatory hooves all around him. There are many.

He feels scraped thin, the palest shadow on fresh snow, empty. Worse than fear, there is a certainty in his hollow heart: they have taken everything they can. And yet, they are still gathering, amassing for one final feast.

It will be the end of him.

Pitch Black lies in a fetal curl, and his shoulders shake in a silent, feeble laugh. Even the Nightmare King is, at last, empty of fear. Something the Nightmares will no doubt correct.

His every last scrap will not be fought over by tens or dozens, but by hundreds. He is certain of it. There is a distinct horrible symmetry.

It reminds him of something.

Of something. . .

A glimmer of gold in the dark.

Pitch clenches his fingers on the smooth stone of the floor, blinking in the empty dark. The nightmares are still amassing, an almost languid air of anticipation. He almost. . . he can almost see something in the ever-deep gloom.

He is drained of every last emotion. He cannot possibly find a wellspring of hope now, and the very thought is ridiculous. As if the rabbit would gift _him_ with any last wishes. And yet. . .

Unconsciously, he has clasped one hand to his chest. As if grasping for something long missing. He feels something should be there. Last time. . .

_He fell under the deluge of dark, clutching the locket to his breast._

A memory? Impossible. He is nearly older than the Moon, and he remembers nothing of the sort. . . Pitch Black is and has always been fear incarnate.

Except now he is a void, and a void that screams-

He will not go down without a fight.

There is the faintest whisper of air moving. If it is cold, that is only his imagination. He does not believe in a breeze this far underground . . . except.

Except if he is not deep underground at all.

One hand clutched to his heart, one hand upon the stone, Pitch Black tucks his feet under him. The air of anticipation sharpens, a wave cresting- he has seconds before it breaks. He takes off like a sprinter from the blocks, his free hand summoning one last-ditch weapon from the shadows.

He's worn thinner than he thought; he cannot manage the ever-changing scythe, only a sword. But it feels right in his hand, and that is what lets Pitch face the newly-enraged nightmares. He roars, "Enough!"

As a battle cry goes, it leaves something to be desired, but Pitch is willing to cut himself some slack at the moment. Because no sooner has he gained his feet and room to maneuver when he sees it.

Against the deep shifting blacks of the nightmares' lair, it is only the faintest glimmer- but he does not imagine it. A shaft of light.

_He can do it._ He knocks a leaping nightmare aside with the snap of a wrist, plowing straight through the resulting eruption of sand.

_He will do it._ He ducks the charge of two nightmares together, wheeling under their attack to slash a hamstringing cut across their flanks. They scream their agony at his back, because he has already moved on.

_He has to._

_"_ You thought I was finished? You thought I would let you have me again? I will not fall so easily!" He is near-laughing as he taunts the nightmares now. And if terror rises at the back of his mind, so too does a giddy sort of certainty and wonder. He will do this, because he must. Being afraid will not stop him.

He is the king of this place, and he will not die here.

That is what Pitch finds, at the very bottom of his being: not fear, not terror, but sheer, stubborn willpower.

(That is what he tells himself, after all, and Pitch is an accomplished liar.)

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * "where even the stairs do not know when they lead up or down" - this line I credit entirely as paraphrased from Kay Cricketed's "Long Shadows Follow." *ducks head* I am so sorry I am begging forgiveness rather than permission but I am a horrible introvert, and this detail just stuck in my head as absolutely spot on. If you haven't read that yet, GO DO SO.


	3. Howl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yelling at the moon never solves anything.

**Two**

Howl. _(Yelling at the moon never solves anything.)_

 

Salvation, when he finds it, looks much like the smallest pinprick hole in the firmament above. It is a pencil-thin shaft of light, but that sliver is where he makes his stand.

Unless he misses his guess, the nightmares are much affronted by his sudden change of heart. Waves of them break upon his sword, and the dunes of black dream sand attest to his progress. He almost doesn't realize it when they stop, the crowd of hundreds thinning until he stands alone in the echoing chamber, familiar empty cages now visible above. He can hear the echoes of hooves fleeing into the deeper halls.

Greatly daring, Pitch uses his sword as a prop to stagger through the now-familiar halls to one stairwell that breathes fresh air into the depths. He barely makes it to a landing before collapsing on his back in a shaft of pale light much diminished by its journey this far down. Even that much light is enough to banish his sword, the faint tatters of his raiment flickering around him like a candle in a breeze. Pitch ignores this in favor of staring at the perfect circle of sky visible far, far overhead.

A perfect circle that frames a far-too-familiar sight of a full moon in a bright, fair sky.

"You."

Pitch pants for breath, gathering himself to properly spit the words. "Of course it was you. Must you continue to meddle in my affairs until the last?"

To think, he once believed the man in the moon was nonjudgmental. Pitch huffs a scoffing breath, belatedly realizing he still has one hand clutched against his chest. Ah, right. That. He can't even uncurl his clenched fingers. "Was that your hand, too? Inspiring delusions in the dark?"

He can't quite manage a proper sneer, but that certainly doesn't keep him from trying. He imbues as much scorn as he can into his voice. "Don't expect simple tricks from your puppets to bring me to heel. I am not one of your guardians. You cannot change me."

And, for once in his very, very, very long life, Pitch Black gets an answer.

_No one can change your core._

It's not the one he wanted. And very much not one he expected.

He squints his eyes closed, just for a moment. When he opens them again, there is no moon above, only clear, blue sky. He snarls, then lets his eyes fall closed again.

Typical.


	4. A rational man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avoidance was a perfectly sound plan.

**Three**

A rational man. _(Avoidance was a perfectly sound plan.)_

 

He lays there, for longer than he wants to quantify. Of course, time is immaterial to him, an immortal. The bright light of noon comes and goes, but he cannot bring himself to do more than just rest in its glare. The knowledge that the nightmares dare not risk the sun is worth the discomfort. Slowly, bone and flesh mend, the damage done from striking hooves and tearing teeth vanishing. He is still gaunt, wracked with deep abiding tremors that do not resemble sobs in the slightest.

Pitch Black is a planner. Though his body cannot move, his mind runs on.

Obviously, he has failed. In retrospect, creating an army of more minions than he could control with certainty was a bad idea. (And yet it had been so temptingly obvious at the time, that all he needed was more, more, more.) He needs to be objective, to craft a strategy that will truly work.

Lying on his back, with the sun painting even his bloodless eyelids red, he wonders why that objectivity failed to occur to him last time. And every time prior, if he's honest. Perhaps that's his nature; that fear is like an avalanche. Once started, it cannot be stopped or moderated until it has run out.

An avalanche. Pitch abruptly casts about for a better metaphor. A strung bow. The tension increasing, drawn ever further back, until it must be released in a deadly bolt or risk destroying the mechanism. Him, the Boogeyman, as the mechanism of fear.

His _core._

Pitch scoffs, fingers clenching against his chest again in a new-found habit. He is not a guardian. He existed long before they were bound together, that few, happy band of brothers (and idiots, each and every one). He was not chosen, though they asked, of course. Of course they wanted his power, as one of the ancients. He has no core, no ultimatum to protect humanity, and no desire to hinge his very existence on their beliefs. Live or fall together. Why should he, he who has always been alone?

Just think, if he had, he would be gone by now, certainly. Instead here he clings, to just the barest threads of existence. He craves belief, recognition, companionship- but it isn't what he needs.

What he needs now is survival.

Avoiding the guardians seems like a good place to start.


	5. Slumming it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to get his hands dirty.

**Four**

Slumming it. _(Time to get his hands dirty.)_

 

The Boogeyman that slinks up the abandoned well is not the same one that was blasted down, beneath the broken bed. Pitch Black is now a wasted, gaunt figure of corpse grey and black shadow tatters. He is frighteningly spectral, if you're afraid of that sort of thing.

The little whisper that is always in tune to what children fear tells him he currently resembles a dementor- a fictional creature that represents fear itself. It's a bit too on-the-nose for his usual taste but beggars truly can't be choosers. As it is, he's ever grateful for humanity's wicked little minds for continually providing him new fodder. Nightmare fuel, as they say.

Unfortunately, nightmares, his favorite trick for the last number of decades before the fall, are currently too much of a high-risk endeavor. He can't chance attracting the Sandman's attention. (Attracting the nightmares' attention is also right out, but he shan't dwell on that.) That means that, for now, his best chance is to draw in fear in person. . . while in such a state that he can hardly inspire any at all. _And_ while avoiding the guardians.

Quite a little predicament he has himself in, but thankfully, humans, as always, provide.

He settles himself in the northern hemisphere, creeping out of the cracks just as spring gives way to summer. In summer these days, children are not uncommonly given free rein, to run and play and get themselves into more trouble than the more scholarly cooler months. Summer has longer, hotter days with shorter nights, but the trade off of avoiding the winter brat, the pookha, and most likely North as well are more than worth it. He need only stick to the deepest shadows cast by the harsh sun, and carefully move on before the Sandman and Tooth fairy arrive each night.

Summer, after all, is when humans celebrate scaring themselves silly.

Adrenaline junkies. _This_ is what he has come to.

Pitch sighs deeply, drumming the fingers of his crossed arms on the opposite bicep as he watches the roller coaster roar past inches away from him. Leaning against the wall of the tunnel, he has an excellent view of the moment where it looks exactly like the ride will plummet straight into the earth, but it doesn't. There was never any danger that it ever would.

The fear is sharp, piquant, and fleeting. Shallow. That is the best he can hope for, considering.

 

Pitch subsists on drips and droplets. Sips of fear, never quite deep enough to slake his thirst and barely a drop towards filling the well the nightmares drained.

He can never stay any one place too long; he makes a daily tour of the globe, one step ahead of the Sandman and the fairies. He sits in the back of movie theaters in dozens of countries speaking half a dozen languages, breathing in deeply when the audiences gasp collectively. He runs a single bony finger down the backs of necks of children sitting alone, the flickering screens before them often the only source of light. He walks the halls and creaks the floors of children up too late at night. He stalks through dark alleys, neighborhoods of white picket fences, war zones, living rooms, and cemeteries alike.

Let the guardians think what they will. Pitch Black knows the truth; fear is everywhere. He saturates in that summer of terror. But there is only one, little, sticky problem.

No one believes in the boogeyman.

They believe in other things instead.

Even when he is directly before them.

He looms over where she cowers, a little scraplet of a thing. Her dark eyes are wide, and she clutches her bundle ever-tighter in shaking hands. He can hear her whisper barely louder than her heartbeat, echoing in the little space of the alley. "Are you a hungry ghost?"

Ah, she has stolen food. That is why she chooses this fear, sees starvation in his thin frame. She may not be far off. Pitch laughs softly, flashing sharp teeth at her. "Not quite. Are old superstitions really what you have to fear the most?"

It's not exactly an answer, but Pitch has never been one to coddle children. Especially not ones like this, who have eyes grown too old for their faces. These children are not taught sweet and heartwarming tales by parents at bedsides; instead they share whispers, rumors, warnings amongst each other. He is their best, worst, and last friend, and their only constant companion. Of course he knows their stories. The whole world over, centuries by centuries, only the names change.

He is utterly unsurprised when she shakes her head. There are much worse things than ghosts chasing her tonight. She is wise to fear.

Angry voices call out from the street, and a young man pauses at the entrance to the alley. The alley is a dead end; there is no further place to run, and little room to hide. She tucks herself down even further into a ball behind the refuse heap; she is little more than rags and a thick wave of dark hair cast over all. Pitch wouldn't even hazard a guess at her age.

She is terrified she is going to die here. Old and tired as he is, as often as he has seen similar scenes played out, Pitch can feel her fear resonate within the emptiness of his heart.

"Child, I am not kind. Do not mistake me for Death." He watches her head come up, slowly, as the young man enters the alley. He stands between them, but as insubstantial as a shadow.

Both Pitch and the child realize at the same time that the young man cannot see her. He searches behind the bins, the refuse, swears imprecations, and stalks back out of the alley to holler a negative to the rest of his gang. The would-be predator is likely only a handful of years older than his intended victim, but he does not believe in vengeful ghosts. He never sees the girl slowly stand in Pitch's shadow.

She never reaches for him, but she steps close. Closer. And Pitch finds himself staring in consternation at the swell of _belief_ that comes off her. In a very different flavor and quantity from what he's used to. Terror, oh yes, but also a small rising certainty.

"Child, I am not _safe_ ," he all but snarls in exasperation. For all she has learned many lessons from fear, this child of his purvey is not likely to last much longer if she keeps this up. She is not a true believer of his, not in the ways that matter.

Her voice is very small, "Your shadow is."

Pitch hisses a wordless threat, but she remains, enormous brown eyes fixed on him. He cannot be sure what she sees, in the muddle of streetlights and smog, but it cannot be the Boogeyman. The Boogeyman would not scoff, would not capitulate to the entreaty and tiny, fragile belief held in a scraplet of little girl.

He turns wordlessly and glides out of the alleyway. If she follows him past the searching eyes, it's no business of his. That his steps are slow and measured, his shadow a constant presence despite the flickering and interchangeable light--that's no different. He pauses, however, at a crossroads. He inclines his head towards a particular building; it's warm, filled with light despite the hour, and all but warded against his presence.

"Fear is not welcome there."

He walks on in the darker, meaner streets. He does not look back. He does not check his shadow once, because that would be an admission. Pitch Black does not regret, does not advise, and certainly does not guard.

That night, in a city Pitch cannot be bothered to name, nearly a dozen young ruffians shiver in a breeze that does not exist and cannot find rest, haunted by dark eyes in shadows and a whisper that calls their names and misdeeds. It is not a ghost, but truth that haunts them. Their lives are marked by fear; he knows them all. Perhaps they will remember that what one inflicts can be returned. Pitch is ever a teacher of hard lessons.

He nearly over-stays his welcome; he slips away just as the golden streams of sand glide overhead. He leaves the anonymous city as he came: just another shadow fleeing before the light.

He never gave the child his name. Perhaps that is because he does not know what to give.

(Or he has none left.)

 


	6. Small Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pitch may have pushed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to keep you waiting! I might go with once a week updates rather than twice unless I can get my buffer well-stocked. If anyone's interested, I could use people to talk shop with on tumblr or dreamwidth?

**Five**

Small steps. _(Pitch may have pushed.)_

 

It may be a whim, or the memory of the words of the small child that stays his steps on a midsummer evening. He is not, precisely, a hungry ghost, having never lived, but the vibrancy of the festival dedicated to them invites his scrutiny. He walks amongst the crowds as a tall man in a dark robe of a foreign style. Oddly, he could almost feel he belongs, even as passerby meander through his insubstantial form. Children wear masks and hide playfully behind fans, screeching mock terror at each other. It's . . . quaint. Not a jot of real fear to be had.

He assures himself he's growing used to his diet, as he must of necessity. The hunger pangs, such as they were, have dulled. He can recall with fervid memory the depth and flavor of horrors he has tasted, and knows it will be long before he knows the like again.

The offerings of food on shrines and memorial stones is pure irony. Wholly inadequate to service one such as him.

He avoids the graveyards in favor of the carnivals. There is no fear in the altars, the incense, the ceremonial sweepings: only a certain respect shaded with melancholy. The festivals, raucous as they are, have more fervor, more life, and more thrills. More chances for him to feed, somewhere in the seething mass of humanity.

It seems he's not the only one who thinks so.

He hears it before he sees it; the anachronistic sound of hooves ringing against pavement stands out above the noise and bustle of the crowd. It could be one of their mounted guardsmen, a carriage, a parade performer, but Pitch knows the timber of that sound intimately. He can't help the faint shiver down his spine, despite the summer heat.

Pitch turns slowly, skimming his eyes over the throngs congregated to locate the source of the slow, striking steps of the nightmare he knows is there. At last it turns a corner, head and withers barely visible over the heads of the people as it all but slinks along the sidewalk, nose low. That there is a nightmare, here, bold as brass amongst the waking does not bode well.

Directly beneath its flaring nostrils is a boy, clutching the hand of his mother. Pitch skips from the shadow of the booth he is beside to the vestibule of the store they are passing on their way to the carnival set in the open space of a park.

"-just masks, Shuu-chan. You don't need to be afraid."

"But. . . there are monsters everywhere." The boy's voice waivers, eyes wide above deep shadows. The nightmare's ears perk up, whistling on a long indrawn breath. It completely ignores Pitch as it walks past, fixated on its prey.

Ah.

He can almost taste the boy's swell of fear, but as weak as he is, he should feel the influx of power to accompany it. There is none. Pitch narrows his eyes at the stalking nightmare and murmurs low, "So that's your game."

The guardians never really appreciate what he does. Not that that surprises him. Very few people have any proper appreciation for the things they fear; and oh, make no mistake, the guardians do all fear him, in one way or another.

What the guardians truly failed to appreciate about Pitch's nightmares is that whenever he brought them to children, he also took them with him when he left. The nightmares weren't left free to become . . . recurring. Clearly in his absence, some have found fertile fields of imagination in the children best suited to feed themselves on.

He could leave this one to feed until it is sated, and be thankful that it has found other prey, but. . . He does so hate leaving loose ends. The nightmare may feed then turn on him after all. He is willing to take a gamble.

Pitch insinuates himself into the throngs ahead, trying to ignore the decidedly unpleasant sensation of humans passing through him. He waits, deceptively lazy, in the shadow of a tree at the edge of the park. He feels the moment of connection when the boy's eyes land on him. The nightmare is playing up the boy's fear of the unknown, of strangers, of monsters and legends. . . of course he will see the nightmare king, garbed in whatever belief best suits.

He raises his eyes to catch the boy's gaze. The boy stops. The nightmare snorts.

"Shuu-chan, what is it?"

The boy swallows. Pitch smiles slowly, like a contented cat.

"Yo- . . . youkai."

"Do you see me, child?"

Wordlessly, the head nods.

"Do you fear me, child?"

Again, a nod. Pitch's smile turns from feline to shark. He steps forward, looming over the little boy. Really, he can't be but six. Pitch will get half a decade of belief out of him if he pulls this off. The nightmare huffs and stamps impatiently. It had better be a fair trade. "Good. Remember that well, because you owe me a debt."

He can see the confusion crossing the child's face; he leans close, to whisper in the child's ear. "The greatest monsters don't wear masks."

The nightmare shrieks a challenge. Pitch straightens, unhurried, and narrows his eyes as he calls a blade to hand. "And you- you should know your place."

The beast snorts and plunges at him almost before he can bring the sword up to guard.

Curious that he automatically summoned a sword; he doesn't remember consciously choosing it over his customary scythe. Perhaps it's because of the battle in his lair, or perhaps it's because of the shell of belief he wears now. No matter. It will serve.

This nightmare is stronger than many he'd used against the guardians; the hooves strike against his sword and almost drive him back. He whips a riposte towards the nightmare's face that forces it to rear back, then deliberately flits through the shadows to the top of the nearest over-hanging lamp post. "Come! Will you let your prey be stolen so easily?"

He almost laughs as it charges after him. So easily manipulated. It's stronger for having fed, perhaps for weeks, off this boy and others like him, but it's clearly no smarter. Perhaps it's a nebulous fear rather than a named one.

It screams as it gallops through the air at him. Pitch is no fool; he jumps to the next light, then another. The nightmare snorts in fury, ears pinned, as it increases speed. Except, this time, Pitch doesn't jump forward as the nightmare reaches him; he only blends into shadow for a split second to avoid the thundering hooves, then steps back out to to lash out in a diagonal strike as the nightmare passes. His shadow-blade passes cleanly through the beast's back and it collapses into a cloud of black sand.

Pitch stands still, blade at his side, as he watches the particles slowly lose momentum and trickle down to the sidewalk below. This was easier than he'd expected, for all he was weak and the nightmare well-fed.

He hears the child's cry below at the same time as the hairs raise on the back of his neck.

"Yo-youkai-san!"

Oh, yes. He's forgotten about his luck. And the likelihood of there only being one solitary nightmare in a city the size of Tokyo. If he runs now, when they have his scent, the herd will hunt him across the globe. Pitch raises his eyes heavenward to find the sliver of the Moon visible overhead. "Really. Is all this truly necessary?"

It sounds like a stampede, all the hooves pounding towards him at once. The herd is moving.

He clenches his fist and gathers the black sand to him, creating a mobile platform that he raises over the empty space of the park. If he must fight, he will do so where he has room to move, without being handicapped by the threat of humans passing through him and breaking his concentration.

One such slip, and they will be on him. He appreciates that fact quite well now, thank you, Jack bloody Frost.

He cannot stop the thrill of fear in him as the nightmares pour into view like black smoke blocking the lights of the skyline. Fifty at least, and some stronger than others. At least half of them are as strong as the one he just finished. Pitch narrows his eyes, breathes out, and steadies his sword hand at the ready.

The first wave, he blocks with a shield of black sand, batting them aside with a toss of his off hand. Then it is a series of desperate strikes and parries; ducking the gnashing teeth of one, reversing his grip briefly to impale another attempting to strike him from behind, spinning to decapitate a particularly fierce one.

He will fight, and this time, he will not forget that those who fall can become his weapon.

Between parries, Pitch swirls his free hand to bring up the sand of the fallen to form a wall at his back, forcing the nightmares to approach him from within his field of vision.

Teeth graze his arms, hooves strike his legs and batter him with terror; he loses his footing more than once. He is certain reinforcements beyond the original number are trickling in. But he will not stay down.

He's survived worse than this, after all.

He ducks low beneath a leaping charge, sweeps a long cut through the nightmare's back legs, then stabs up through the chest of another before it can crash over him. A wave- there's an idea.

Still crouched, he holds his sword in a high guard and gathers his control over the black sand. It will take concentration and will power to muster what he has in mind, but Pitch has never (rarely) doubted himself on that front. (He will give them no openings, he mustn't.)

Falling out of the shape of ramparts behind him, the sand roars up, up, then hurtles back down like a tsunami brought to bear on his enemies. He can hear the whinnies of distress, the screams of panic from the further nightmares before they're subsumed and crushed into oblivion.

Then . . . it is all quiet.

Pitch finds himself alone, breathing hard, crouching on a seething cloud of black sand that drifts incongruously above the bright paper lanterns of the festival. He straightens, pulls his garb back into order, and sheathes the blade at his side.

"Well, well. Victorious at last."

He turns his palms up, the roiling mass following the gesture, then holds them still. The sand freezes. He smiles thinly. "And your rebellious streak is tamed. Go, until I have further use of you."

He flips his hands and presses down, as if pushing the sand away into the shadows, and it vanishes. His vantage gone, he drops from the sky to land in a crouch in the grass.

When he stands and raises his eyes, he realizes he has an audience.

A handful of children of varying heights and ages, gathered underneath the tree, staring at him with wide eyes. It's not quite fear on their faces, but it is certainly rapt. To one side is the little boy, his mother distracted talking to another woman now that her child isn't crying.

"Youkai-san?" The child doesn't stammer this time, and almost looks a bit awed.

Oh, of course, he's still wrapped in whatever illusion of belief the child first created. Whatever it is these children see, it has little to do with who and what Pitch Black is. He may as well be anonymous. In the wake of his victory, the city feels as if a shadow has been lifted. Pitch would froth at the Moon's manipulation if it weren't for the futility of it. The faint tang of misplaced belief leaves his heart hollow and bitter.

Still, he has a part to play, however uncredited. He meets that child's eyes, and nods. "Remember."

Strangely solemn, the boy nods back.

It's time for him to move on. Pitch turns in place and vanishes into the tree's shadow, one hand on the sword at his hip. He never thinks about what he leaves in his wake.

 

(There is a new story, that is begun to be whispered on the streets of Asia. There is a tall man, corpse-pale, clothed in shadows, who walks the night. He leads the midnight parade of a hundred demons. He is Fear itself. But if you are brave enough to walk in Fear's shadow, he will protect you.)


	7. Truth in advertising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Run. RUN, you fools!

**Six**

Truth in advertising. _(Run. RUN, you fools!)_

 

There's some ridiculous mortal saying about wanting to be where people know your name. Pitch never consciously chooses to visit Burgess, but his feet find the path all the same. There is, after all, an entrance to his lair there: the ruins of the broken bed standing sentinel in the forest.

At a crossroads, Pitch decides to forgo the town as being both too risky and far too stupid a move for him to possibly make. Instead, he walks the woods, through the empty halls beneath the trees in the long hours it takes for the sun to truly set in the summer.

Unsurprisingly, he is drawn to a large abandoned building being slowly devoured by nature, some ghost of industry past. He strolls long empty corridors that do not echo with his steps, paces beneath hulks of machinery which have forgotten their purpose. It is a proper place for haunts, named and otherwise.

It's also a trouble magnet for adventurous types.

Pitch hears them long before he sees them; two young voices cheerfully quarreling as they clamber noisily over the ruins of the chain-link fence intended to stop such endeavors. He idly marks their progress from a vantage inside a broken window some four stories up, no doubt inspiring feelings of being watched and dim paranoia. It doesn't seem to slow their pace; the two boys advance across the weed-choked yard to a cargo-loading door that has long since rusted in place some paltry few handspans above the ground. That's enough for an enterprising youth to crawl under. The second hesitates, but follows after some cajoling.

It's that contrast of caution and recklessness that makes Pitch decide they warrant a closer look.

Not that he wouldn't have tried to rattle them anyways. They're just asking for it, really.

"Is this really a place for children?" Pitch ghosts through the shadows, skipping the skeleton of stairs to reappear in the loading bay on the first floor. "Trespassing. How naughty; North will be disappointed in you."

The boy with glasses whispers, "Did you hear something?"

"What, Monty?" The taller boy, a brunet, flicks his flashlight over the empty room, revealing an intricate pattern of decay overtaking the walls and a ceiling spider-webbed with cracked and peeling paint. He walks between the bare metal support pillars, craning his head for a good look around. "Do you think it's a ghost?"

Pitch follows the intrepid idiot a few strides forward. With an air of morbid curiousity, he plants himself in the boy's path, arms folded. He is not unduly surprised when the child walks through him without pause, heading for an open hallway. "No, no, of course not. You're willing to believe in ghosts but not, it seems, the boogeyman. What a pity. I could have given you quite the show."

The child with glasses, Monty, shakes his head. "I don't know, Jamie. Are you sure this is okay?"

"Don't be a scaredy cat." Jamie hops over a stain of unknown origin on the floor, grinning back. "Wouldn't seeing a ghost be cool? We've met the Guardians before, right, so they've got to be real."

"Ahh, so that's why you're so familiar. And so oblivious. The boy without fear." Pitch frowns at the two boys, judging them to be perhaps twelve or thirteen. Almost too old to believe anymore, but then, this is the original true believer. Jamie Bennett. So there is his answer as to how long he's spent in the labyrinth; three to five years, give or take. That's a question he hasn't been eager to answer.

"I'm not afraid of ghosts, Jamie, I'm afraid the floor's going to go!" Monty fires back, scrambling to keep up as Jamie peers into each of the rooms. Evidently the moldering, bare offices are not of interest. "My mom's going to kill me if she finds out we came here."

"Now that one, that one has sense." Pitch raises a brow as the boy passes through him and shivers. He has an inkling. . . "And perhaps. . . potential."

Oh, to be young and stupid. The boy most fears being an outcast. Forever last picked, forever left behind, forever considered weak, a geek, and a coward. Pitch smirks and saunters after the runt of the litter. "Well, at least you're realistic."

The boys aren't patient enough to travel all the way down the corridors to the factory floor, which Pitch assumes is the main draw. Instead the adventurer has the attention span of a goldfish; he spots the stairs and perks up. "Hey, there's a way up. Let's check it out."

Jamie plays his flashlight over the metal skeleton of the staircase; shadows dance against the walls through the slats in a way that has little to do with light and more to do with visions of yawning pits beneath their feet. Naturally he doesn't flinch to make the climb, but his little follower blanches. Swallows. And obviously has to pluck up his courage to take the first step. Then another. He hurries to catch up with the pool of light offered by their single flashlight; outside may still be golden with the long shadows of late summer sunset, but inside the factory has become Pitch's domain.

Pitch dogs their steps, just that little bit behind them that makes the metal groan and shiver. He skims his talons along the rail, sending curls of rust to drop the not-inconsiderable distance to the floor below. The faint, scritching sound it makes echoing around the stairwell is just a bonus. Jamie doesn't stop at the next floor; no, that would be too pedestrian for the little explorer. He grins at Monty over his shoulder. "Let's go to the top and work our way down. I wonder if we can get on the roof?"

Monty attempts to be nonchalant, "There's probably a really nice view up there. I told you we should bring a camera."

"Maybe we can come back with one next time." Jamie is perfectly cheerful; there is no question that he's already planning a return.

Pitch rolls his eyes, "My, you are just a wellspring of bad ideas."

The runt trips over his own feet on the landing, catching himself on the railing. Pitch hums thoughtfully to himself, "Now, was that because you can hear me or. . .?"

"You okay?" Jamie pauses halfway up the next flight, turning to point the light down on him. Monty scrambles to brush the flakes of rust and peeling paint off his hands, smiling shamefacedly at his friend.

"Yeah, I'm good. I just thought there was a step where there wasn't."

"Okay, just watch your feet." And Jamie, the brilliant little idiot he is, turns the light away and moves on before Monty is quite caught up with him. Pitch snorts to himself, feeling the spike of fear and adrenaline in the blond who nearly trips again when he finds himself stranded in dark. The ever-moving light plays games with the shadows, and no doubt wreaks havoc on the doubled vision at the edge of his glasses. It's not something the boy wonder would have any concept of, cheerfully ignorant as he is.

"You realize, you're doing all the work for me. Am I really necessary here?"

Monty shivers as they pass an open doorway, now heading up past the fourth floor. "Do you hear whispers?"

"Huh? No, nothing." Jamie pauses on the stairs, letting their echoes die away to silence. There's little ambient noise in this place, no wind, even the normal rustling of the trees blocked by the thick brick walls. There's an unnatural hush to abandoned places such as this, once vibrant and now empty, where nothing living has been welcome for decades.

In that silence, Pitch leans close over the runt's shoulder, whispering in his ear, "You're almost there."

He can all but hear the boy's heart beat faster. Monty startles, rubs at the back of his neck. His friend blinks, suddenly hopefully, "You heard something?"

"No, just. . . got a chill." The boy grimaces, waving upwards. "Come on, we're almost there."

Pitch lets the boy pull away and studies him thoughtfully. That could have been coincidence, or . . . Well. He isn't a fool enough to hope.

Jamie is the first to reach the top, of course, and is almost patient enough to wait and hold the light steady for Monty to catch up- except for the last few stairs. He pulls the light away to study the unremarkable metal door, oblivious to his friend freezing in place before hesitantly feeling out the last steps. Pitch is amused to watch the blond's expression go from panic to disgruntlement.

"Would you quit doing that?"

"What?" Jamie blinks innocently, then plows on without following up. "We're definitely at the roof; none of the other doors were on this side."

Monty scowls at him, but he looks at the door, too. "Is it locked?"

He's obviously half-hoping that it will be. Just for amusement's sake, Pitch saunters between them and strokes one hand over the deadbolt. It had been locked, of course, but that's a trifle to him. Manipulating locks is a very, very old game; there's a particular joy in unnerving humans that find a locked door where they expected to pass through, or an open door that had been closed.

Jamie tries the push handle, hearing the click of movement in the mechanism, but the door sticks. "Huh, I don't think so. Just warped shut. Help me out here?"

Pitch rolls his eyes heavenward. "And you don't even know what's on the other side, do you? Far be it for me to dissuade such determined idiocy."

Both boys put their shoulders into it, heave, and end up stumbling through the door when Pitch adds just a little push to clear the rust from the frame. It gives with the sound of tortured metal hinges, an ominous herald to their ungainly arrival.

Jamie has no regard for the ear-piercing shriek; he only has eyes for the sunset smudging red and purple across the clouds and catching golden in the tops of trees below. "Oh, wow. Look at that."

Monty instead looks and sees the uneven surface of the roof, where tar paper seems to roll and swell like the ocean. He balks, but Jamie walks straight for the western edge of the building, an easy fourty yards away.

Pitch is not the least surprised; he has seen many grandiose displays of nature, but few mortals with such blatant disregard for their own safety. There isn't even a guard rail, just a paltry lip. The Nightmare King studies the scene with morbid curiousity, "Do the Guardians know their little hero is this defective? No, no, if they were aware, they'd probably just cheer you on."

It's not like even their youngest member is closely aligned with mortality, these days.

What does surprise Pitch is when the runt slowly starts making his way across, following in Jamie's footsteps. The roof visibly bows beneath his feet, even though he avoids the dips. Pitch scowls and trails after, "Somehow I expected better of you. You're supposed to be the brains of the operation, aren't you?"

Jamie looks back to make sure Monty is with him, then steps up to the edge with a little boy's grin. "This is so cool. I can see houses and buildings past the trees."

Pitch winces despite himself, and throws up his hands in exasperation as Monty steps forward, too. "Oh, this—this is just magnificently poor judgment. Do continue."

Perhaps Monty hears his voice as the groan of the joists and rotting wood below them. He casts a wary look over his shoulder, then out across the woods and hints of the subdivision beyond them. "This is what we came up here to see?"  
"Yeah. Aren't the clouds beautiful?" Jamie sounds wistful, completely oblivious to the blond's sudden disgust.

"The sunset's pretty, yeah, but we could have seen that from inside." Monty sighs and pushes his floppy hair out of his face, then resettles his glasses with the air of one obeying a nervous habit. The runt is still unnerved, does not like being this close to a five-story fall in the least, and well, Pitch agrees. They're being foolish, and it would do them well to listen to someone sane.

Someone whose better than human senses can tell when the already weakened roof begins to buckle. Pitch glances from the sagging corner joist about to give way to the two boys perilously close to the drop. "And that—that would be the sound of your imminent doom. Don't say I didn't warn you."

The hair is absolutely standing up on the back of the blond's neck while Pitch looms just behind him. "Did you hear. . .?"

"Still? It's nothing, Monty. Probably just the trees."

Pitch wills the blond to get it, to feel the prickles of fear that come from knowing something horrible is about to happen. If he could pour fear into the boy like a vessel, he should be overflowing by now. Monty shakes his head, "No, I think . . . I think we should go."

"Let's just watch the sun set, then we'll go, okay?" Jamie smiles. "We got up here fine and we'll get home in time."

Pitch snaps over his shoulder, "You idiot! You'll believe in fairy tales but not in common sense?"

Monty takes half a step backwards into Pitch's space, uncertain, and Pitch can feel their footing tremble. They're running out of time. "Run."

The blond's eyes go wide, and he looks over his shoulder, towards Pitch and the relative safety of the stairs they came from. Pitch snarls, "Quit wasting time. Run!"

"No, we really, really have to go." Monty steps back again, and the roof groans audibly. Jamie looks at him, surprised.

"What was that? I think I heard it this time."

Right beside them, Pitch folds his arm and glowers. By all rights the blond should have been terrified into bolting back down to the ground floor by now. "You would think I'm talking to myself here. You don't have forever." He throws out one arm to point imperiously towards the stairs. "Move!"

Monty snags Jamie by the wrist and pulls him back from the edge. "Come on. Let's go!"

The runt hauls his taller friend along the first few stumbling steps, trying and failing to build momentum. Jamie puts the brakes on, puzzled. "Geez, what's wrong with you, Monty?"

If Pitch could possibly touch them, he would have been hauling the boys off by the scruff of the neck by now. "Now is not the time for chit chat and heart to hearts! _Run_ , you fools!"

"Not now, run!" Monty knowingly-or-not echoes him, hauling Jamie along behind him. Until even the brunet realizes their footing is going soft.

That little jolt of realization is so close to fear that Pitch can nearly taste it. So close, yet damningly so far. Much like their position across the wide expanse of buckling wood.

Monty's heart is in his throat, fear hammering a furious beat that matches his steps.

Where they stood before has crumpled into the floor below, with much of the roof looking likely to follow its collapse in their direction. The concussions from their running feet tremble through the structure and set off a chain reaction of stresses the moldering, ruined joists cannot support.

Neither boy thinks much of the door swinging open for them easily when they slam through one after the other, to the relative reinforced safety of the stairwell. They hit the stairs running, whether or not it's wise, and when one sneakered foot slips off into dark oblivion, well, perhaps it meets a more solid darkness than should have been there.

By all rights both of them should have fallen half a dozen times, should have dropped five stories off the roof to break their necks, but Pitch chases them all the way down to safety, out the front door neither had realized was there earlier. They can't quite manage a run across the courtyard, more of a shambling jog, but the fading sunlight paints their faces golden with relief. They collapse on the far side of the ruined chain link fence, breathless, sweaty, and still terrified.

One of them, anyways.

Pitch counts that as close to a victory as he's going to get for this little adventure.

Monty, being smarter than most, holds out his hand wordlessly while he struggles to breathe.

"What?"

"Give me the flashlight," he manages from where he's slumped against a tree.

"Uh, sure." Jamie leans just enough to hand it over, still puzzled.

Pitch could applaud the blond's disgruntled expression, "Next time, we both get lights. On the way back I'll carry it behind while you lead, so you can walk in the light. That sucked."

"Oh. Sorry!" Jamie blinks innocently, all contrite puppy. No wonder he still believes in the Guardians; he's very much a child. "I didn't think it was a problem."

"Yeah. I'm lucky I didn't fall back there. I thought I did."

"You thought so, hm?" Pitch hums thoughtfully. "I wonder what would have happened if you had."

Jamie sits up, slinging his arms around his knees. "So, what do you think you heard back there? Was it a ghost that we upset?"

"No, you're not so lucky this time." Pitch snorts, pacing around the pair. "Just foolish."

He's really not expecting what happens next.

"Do you think. . . maybe. . . it was the shadow man?" Monty swallows nervously. "He's back?"

"Pitch Black? Jack and the Guardians defeated him years ago. He's gone for good."

"I don't know. He's fear, right? That's not something that you can just get rid of." Monty frowns at his friend. "Maybe it's not something you _should_ get rid of."

And, just like that, Pitch _knows_ when the boy believes.

"Finally, someone comes around to my point of view." Pitch smiles, sharp teeth on full display as the boy's eyes go horribly wide. He purrs, "What a pleasure to meet a like mind, Montgomery Scott."

The runt squeaks. He flicks the flashlight on and desperately points it at Pitch. Pitch gives him credit where credit is due for thinking of one thing that might logically harm a shadow, but that was never all he is. So instead he treats the flashlight beam as a spotlight, bowing magnanimously to the boy.

Jamie blinks at the scene, completely clueless. "What's going on?"

"Don't you _see him_?!" Monty hisses frantically. The flashlight follows Pitch's steps as he idly circles the children, finding a convenient tree to lean against.

"See who?"

" _Pitch Black_." Monty points, "He's right there!"

"It's rude to point, Montgomery," Pitch drawls.

"It's Monty." The runt retorts, attempting to pull himself together. "Only my mom calls me Montgomery when I'm in trouble."

"And you're not in trouble now?" Pitch can't help provoking another delicious little thrill of fear.

The runt swallows hard. "I . . . I guess so. But. . ." He glances back over his shoulder at the dust still drifting out of the building they just escaped. "I think I would have been in a lot more."

"Really?" Pitch pretends skepticism. "And what makes you think I didn't engineer that disaster for you?"

"Something told me to run. To get out." Monty squares his shoulders, ignoring Jamie's expression like he's watching an invisible tennis match. "I think that was you."

"That voice, Montgomery, was fear. And you did an admirable job of listening."

Monty shivers. "What. . . what would have happened if I didn't?"

"What do you think?" Pitch taunts, waving idly at the boy wonder. "Being fearless isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it?"

Monty's mouth works soundlessly for a moment before he protests, "But he's brave!"

"Bravery is not the absence of fear!" Pitch snaps, shoving off from the tree in a violent motion to stalk towards the children. "Real courage is persevering through it, to do what you must. _You_ have been braver tonight, Monty Scott."

The blond's eyes are huge behind his glasses. "I. . . was? I was. But I was so scared."

"And you did the right thing, regardless." Pitch steps back, feeling the tension slowly drain away. Children. Sometimes they make him feel so very old.

"You're not just a nightmare, are you?" Monty looks half-curious and half-suspicious.

Pitch sighs, "Rarely is anything so simple." He catches the moment when Jamie's gaze finally focuses on him; he smirks and claps slowly. "Ah, now the true believer gets it, little by little. You're a bit late to the party."

Jamie can't stop staring. "Pitch Black. You . . . you look different."

"As do you. Time changes us all." Pitch shrugs cavalierly, preparing to step back into the shadows. "Remember one thing, Jamie Bennett. Your friend saved you tonight because he had what you lacked. Fear is wise."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, the entire middle scene was absolutely stuck until I drew inspiration from a real life incident. I am so sorry, Monty, I was totally in your shoes. (In a case of Reality is Stranger than Fiction, there were no collapsing roofs, but there were kittens. I posted a recounting of the tale on dreamwidth and tumblr for the curious. XD)


	8. Runaway horses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The better part of valor, until valor rears its ugly head.

**Seven**

Runaway horses. _(The better part of valor, until valor rears its ugly head.)_

 

He travels with one hand on the sword at his hip, because if one thing is certain, he never knows when he might be attacked next. The shadows are not safe. And he half-expects the Guardians to swoop down on him, for daring to show his face around their most precious child again. For reintroducing him to the concept of fear.

In his weakened state, the Guardians might even pose a genuine threat. How mortifying. The thought of another round of the same makes him feel even more tired.

Given the circumstances, and the opening to his lair so nearby, he dares traipse the upper halls, walking one of the high never-ending bridges on his way to the next most convenient exit to the world above.

That is where he hears hooves.

Pitch stiffens, observes his surroundings and decides there is no better or worse place to meet this one. Because it is just one, and not particularly strong at that. Let it come to him.

He watches with narrowed eyes as a shadow detaches from the gloom, becoming the shape of a slim, long-legged nightmare. It moves slowly, one hoof before the other, as if daring him to flee. He waits for the inevitable moment it will surge forward down the long straight path towards him, for the tinge of dread to crest into a wave of terror. Except. . . there is none of the stalking grace he's seen displayed by the nightmares on the hunt.

Comprehension dawns as the fear trickles in exactly the opposite direction from what he'd expected. The nightmare is afraid of _him_.

That is a delicious irony, but the way it should be. Pitch watches its halting approach with an air of judgment, one hand tightening on the sword's hilt at his side. This one remembers what he can do, he can tell; the nightmare's nostrils flare wide, the head sinks lower. Its neck quivers, until finally, greatly daring, it comes close enough to nudge his empty hand.

Pitch breathes in its gusting sigh and feels . . . fear. The recollection of a small child who is afraid of deep water, fast running currents, and the monsters who would snatch her away below the waves. Instead of tearing at him, the nightmare bolsters him. Without thinking, he places a hand on the nightmare's nose. " _Kelpie._ What a good girl you are."

The nightmare pricks her ears up and whickers gently at him. She is the water-horse, the each uisge, the kelpie- she has many names and he knows them all. She is a nightmare returned to his fold. Pitch can't keep the wicked smile from his face as he swings up onto her back.

Well. Perhaps not all of them are lost.

 

He hasn't quite forgotten about the care and feeding of nightmares. If he only has one to his name, then he had better see that it thrives. Kelpie best likes water, so Pitch finds himself on the coastlines, casually tormenting the end of season tourists who rarely touch deep water. With the end of summer comes hurricanes and a natural swathe of destruction for he and his sole acolyte to walk before, the gale winds at their back. In these days of modern media, paranoia has a far broader footprint than even the largest storm could manage. Fear spreads so very easily.

Belief is harder. Belief travels in strange ways: rumors texted between mobiles and declarations posted in internet forums. Fuzzy pictures some claim are clearly manipulated, hasty videos taken at poor angles, personal account blogs, and attempted artistic interpretations of things unseen.

He never forgets that there is one, gangly, geeky, fourteen-year-old boy who knows his name and countenance. But he dare not press his luck. In such close proximity to the Guardians' favored child, that is like hiding in their shadows and hoping to not be noticed. The consequences of relying on it are not worth the risk. Besides, Pitch is not one of those optimistic fools, to place all his hopes on one slim thread of belief.

Instead, he focuses on maintaining his stable of one. He preys on insecurities, stokes media feeding frenzies, delights in sending children running screaming out of the water while his nightmare crashes through the waves. The little things in life. He's learned to make do.

He's a quarter of the world away, dabbling in the rich superstitions along the Bering Sea, when the call comes.

Such as it is.

The Nightmare King has not forgotten what belief in action feels like; it's merely . . . long unused. Pitch finds himself standing on a pier above cold crashing waves at twilight, one hand knotted over his chest. He is drawn east, and south. He frowns as he places the unfamiliar sensation, then whistles sharply.

"Kelpie! Enough playing. We have work to do."

The nightmare starts guiltily from where she's been nosing about the boats at dock, finding young and old dreamers alike susceptible to her brand of fear. Her hooves strike sparks off the plate metal deck as she plunges into motion, leaping the gap to canter up the pier towards him. In one smooth motion, Pitch seizes a handful of her long seaweed-tendril mane and lets the momentum swing him aboard. When she dives off the end of the pier, they fall into shadow, not cold depths.

They land with a clatter on asphalt on a familiar street corner, in the shade cast by one of a row of streetlights.

And not a stone's throw away, in the center of a pool of light, the children, _his believers_ , are about to be overrun by a half-dozen rogue nightmares.

Their hearts scream of fear.

Pitch snarls and kicks Kelpie into motion. The boys' fear spikes as they register the sound of the galloping nightmare behind them, but no matter, it is _his_ fear. They will not have what belongs to him.

At the last moment, his mount needs no urging to surge over the boys, jumping to place Pitch exactly where he needs to be to savagely slice the head off the first of the interloper nightmares. He twists to continue the slash to bite deep into the back of another to his left, and a wicked kick from Kelpie finishes it.

"Pitch?"

"It worked?!"

He can hear the boys behind him, but this is no time to chat. He orders without looking, "Stay in the light!"

The herd breaks around him; one unlucky beast fails to change direction in time and plunges straight into his blade. Pitch wheels to follow them and give chase down the street away from the children; Kelpie is stronger, faster, and smarter by far than these scraggly nightmares. It's a matter of moments to overtake one, hamstringing it to collapse to the ground. He leaves it to catch another as it turns back towards the boys.

"Too greedy to know proper fear?" Pitch smirks as it recognizes too late the threat he presents. His aim is true. It collapses into a wave of black sand like an oil stain across the street. The last is brighter, for its kind; it runs into the night, a shrill whinny in the distance.

At a far more sedate pace, Pitch stalks back to the downed nightmare. He dismounts in a flourish of black shadow fabric, sword still in hand, and stands over the beast. Its fear is a fluttering, desperate thing, a mouse in his claws. His smile is all white, sharp teeth.

It keens at him, front legs pawing against the pavement.

"Fool. The penalty for treason is death."

He brings the point down.

There is nothing like heart's blood on his blade when he slides it home in its scabbard. Nightmares have no such thing. The black sand crunches beneath his boots as he walks towards the children, his shadow fanning out behind him. The kelpie paces him deferentially to his right, like a dog at heel.

At the edges of his mind, he can feel the complex whisper and chill of nightmares in the night. This is a respite, not a solution. Somehow the children have drawn out quite a hunting herd. That they are not on them now has much to do with how he is drawing in the boys' fear to himself, not leaving a whiff for them to scent.

How _much_ fear he is drawing in nearly tells the story for him. The brightest lights cast the darkest shadows, and what light burns brighter than the very last? It's not his true believer who has sparked this feeding frenzy, but the Guardian's dear child.

And here he is, to clean up the mess.

Of course.

He pauses just outside the light. He's not here to hold hands and dispense niceties. He drawls, "What predicament have you found _this_ time?"

"I don't know!" Monty looks brittle and washed out, haphazardly dressed and clutching a flashlight in one hand. "We'd been having bad dreams for a few nights, and then tonight. . . we just knew something bad was happening."

"And that's why you're roaming the streets with herds of nightmares at night?" Pitch lets just the right amount of skepticism and obvious derision hang in the air. He prowls in a circle, choosing to pass behind them first.

Jamie swallows, turning in place to face Pitch. "We couldn't just stay put and let them go after our families. Sophie. . . Sophie can't handle nightmares."

"So you thought to face them. Brave, but foolish. At least you _attempted_ to join forces."

"I-I thought. . ." Jamie stutters, head turning to track Pitch's movement. "I thought we could change them back! Into dreams. I don't understand why it's not working. It worked before!"

The brightest believer is a hair's breadth away from panic at the thought his belief might not be strong enough, might not be _true_ anymore. It's a delicious thing; it fills his breast, and the irony that Jamie is strengthening _him_ and not the Guardians is the best spice imaginable.

"Ah, but these aren't nightmares made of a child's fear." Pitch bares his teeth in a wicked Cheshire cat grin from the shadows. He knows very well where these nightmares came from. "It will take something stronger than a child's belief to tame these."

He pauses, letting his golden eyes gleam as he looks back over his shoulder at Jamie to twist the knife. "Speaking of childhood beliefs, where _are_ your beloved Guardians?"

Monty interrupts, coming forward as Jamie flinches back. "I'm the one who thought we should call you."

"Call me." Pitch does not quite ask, turning to stare at his believer over folded arms. Admittedly, it's a very gutsy move from the runt of the litter.

Monty lifts his chin and meets his eyes, "I remembered you said fear was smart. So. . . I thought you'd know what's going on."

Oh, void spare him, the geek thought they shared solidarity over intellect. Not that he's completely wrong; Pitch is certainly leaps and bounds ahead of the Guardians.

Monty blinks, apparently coming to some conclusion on his own. "You _do_ know. And . . . and you saved us."

"Please. You're not saved yet." Both Nightmare King and nightmare turn as one at the chill feeling of gathering dread in the near distance. The respite is fast coming to a close. Like it or not he has to come to a decision on what to do with the children, and he's not in the business of saving.

"There's more out there, aren't there?" Jamie sounds shaken but certain.

"There are always more nightmares," Pitch can't help smirking, even if they're not properly his. "There is no end to fear, after all."

"Why isn't this one like the others?" Monty hesitantly approaches the long-legged nightmare trailing behind Pitch.

"Ah, ah, don't touch." Pitch's smile is a bit vicious. "Kelpie is a very singular mount. She will carry me, but if you rode her, she might not ever let you off again. Not alive, at least."

Monty swallows hard and steps back from the nightmare. Jamie Bennett, the little folklore expert he is, goes a bit pale with understanding right away. Pitch gives him a half-mocking nod of acknowledgment, certain that the boy would mind his less-informed friend.

He can feel the dread anticipation even stronger now, like the charge gathering before lightning. Any moment now the balance will tip and the nightmares will strike.

"That does, however, give me an idea." Pitch spins back to the remains of the lesser nightmares he has struck down. A swirl of his hands gathers the black dream sand to him, amorphous and glittering in the dark. He studies the whirls, wheels spinning rapidly in his mind. The boys need to get away, and quickly. Shadows are far from safe transport, under the circumstances. So- a mount. This is going much too fast for him to find a dreaming child and resort to the usual techniques, even if they were still on the table. Odds are the Sandman is quite nearby, and Pitch rather doubts the golden man will buy "I needed a nightmare to carry the children" as an excuse for corrupting more dreams.

The Sandman. Aha, plan.

The Guardians _are_ in the business of saving, after all. This is their problem. He just needs to hand it off. Before the hunting herd can find them.

Pitch breaths out, decision made. "Well. Needs must. . ." He closes his eyes and extends a hand over the drifts. In his ever-exhausted state, sleep is but a breath away, and with it. . .

The alarmed noises from the children inform him of his success. Pitch opens his eyes to the newly risen nightmare before him. It is larger than the usual, as it must be if it is going to carry two teenagers. One that large needs a sufficiently strong fear behind it, and he has reached deep, quickly. There was no other name for it but, "Icarus."

The nightmare paws the ground with a heavy hoof, enormous head bowing to him. He knows, down to the bone, that this nightmare will always be his. It will always return to him, because it will have nowhere else to feed.

"Did you just . . .?"

"Make a nightmare? Yes." Pitch rests a hand on the nightmare's shoulder and pretends it is more for affect than because he feels unsteady.

Very-nearly-fearless Jamie Bennett frowns at him. "That looked more like _having_ a nightmare."

Pitch replies dryly, "There is remarkably little difference between the two."

Monty, bless his practical heart, sizes up the nightmare and quails. "It's a lot bigger than the others. Are we going to be safe with it?"

"Oh, I rather doubt Icarus will hurt you. He's a very _specific_ nightmare." Pitch smirks, pressing down so the nightmare obediently bows forward on bent knees. "Up you get."

Jamie, being the tallest, scrambles up the nightmare's shoulder first. Pitch boosts Monty on behind him. Icarus straightens slowly, both the boys looking to Pitch with expectant faces.

"Where are we going?"

"To find the Sandman. He must be nearby, and the Guardian will do his duty." Pitch doesn't bother hiding his bitter amusement. " _He_ can keep you safe and see you home."

"What about you?"

Pitch didn't expect that of Jamie, the little do-gooder, but he smiles tightly anyways. "It seems I have some business to attend to here. They're mine, after all." The trials and tribulations of the throne.

He won't tell them not to be afraid. That would be entirely counterproductive, and foolish to boot. Instead, he quirks a brow at Monty, meeting his eyes. "Remember what courage is, and the nightmares won't catch you."

Monty pushes up his glasses nervously. "What did you make this one from?"

"Fear of failure." Knowing full well that is not reassuring in the slightest, Pitch turns away, settling one hand on the hilt of his sword. "Icarus, fly! Find the Sandman!"

With a deep snort, the heavy nightmare thunders into motion, eliciting a yelp from Monty and a startled "Whoa!" from Jamie as it takes to the air. He puts them from his mind; Icarus will obey orders, the Sandman will protect them, and at worst, Icarus will be dispelled and Sandman can carry the children home. First task, complete. He turns to the slimmer nightmare who remains, looking to him expectantly. As much as it would be reassuring to keep her with him, she has a potentially more useful role to play.

"Kelpie, go bring me the cavalry. At the very least bring another to pick up my pieces in the morning." Pitch glances at the sky. Not yet midnight. He has a very exciting, very painful night ahead of him. "I'll need you then."

She bobs her head, ears flicking at him, then with a final nudge of her nose, takes off into the night. Pitch doesn't pay much attention to which direction she flees; like as not he'll not see her until the morning, with whatever tame nightmares she can find.

For this fight, he will be alone.

Pitch smirks without humor. As usual. He flits through the shadows to a more suitable battle ground; the main boulevard, empty of traffic in the dead of night. He settles his shoulders back, keeps one hand on his sword's hilt, and deliberately does not let his hand stray to his breast. Time to do what he does best.

Fear.

He tears into his heart, exposes the naked vulnerabilities and frailties within, and leaves them bare. Of course he is alone, he is the misshapen creature even the Moon rejected. He has failed, been trodden into the dust. He will always fail—he has barely two believers in the entirety of the world. Two believers who don't even properly fear him, will quickly forget him, and are probably off falling out of the sky when they do just that.

It works sooner than he expected, to be honest.

He hears the inquisitive snort followed by a hunting shriek from further away. Yes. Very familiar noises; all that is missing is the echo of the labyrinths where they hunted him down, over and over again. . .

Oh. His hands are shaking.

This seemed like such a better idea earlier.

His shadow flickers and snaps behind him as the nightmares descend like a funnel cloud touching the earth to become a full-fledged tornado. He will not flinch as he draws his sword and walks in measured steps to meet the storm. His dignity is a thin facade over his quaking heart, but he dare not hide his fear deeper. Not while he has a role to play.

They strike.

This time, he does not meet them head on. Pitch ducks, twists sideways, just barely evades the torrent overtaking him. He takes the coward's opportunities; sly stabs from behind, low handicapping blows that cripple and maim. Much of the herd that passes too close to him comes away limping. And still Pitch radiates the terror of the hunted.

The herd churns as one unit and more wisely encircles him. Like they had before, in the caverns. . . Pitch lets the memory play out behind his eyes, his heart racing, his pulse impossible to divide from the sound of the thunderous hooves all around him.

And before they can move as one, he smiles.

It is not kind.

His shadow is a thing of teeth, of inhuman clawed hands, of a predator's eyes glimmering in the dark. It is hungry.

The attacking nightmares are devoured.

Those reaching the front balk, seeing their brethren shredded, but are pressed on by those behind who cannot see but are driven on by the tantalizing scent of fear. In moments, he has decimated their ranks by more than half.

That is the power of belief, invested in him by the last light. It is not endless, but it is a dark and deep shadow he casts. Terror and heady success bubble over into ringing laughter, and Pitch challenges the survivors, "Was that your best shot? Really?"

Some more intelligent sorts try their luck jumping the seething morass of shadows on pavement. Pitch cuts the nightmares out of the air one by one with almost casual aplomb. Dread has turned into anticipation, into thrills that are hardly reassuring but are most certainly energizing.

(And some corner of his mind turns over in disquiet that has that bloody believer made him one of those sad creatures who he mocks, the adrenaline junkie? A fate almost worse than death.)

He could almost think that he has won, until he realizes there is one left. One nightmare that does not move like a horse; it is more like the shadow of a wolf. A truly enormous one that slinks outside the furthest range of his defense. And that is enough to spark a distinct feeling of discomfort and hesitation.

This one is strong, and clever. Can he truly claim to rule it as the Nightmare King? When here he stands, Fear manifested turned on itself, for what? The safety of a child? Since when did the Boogeyman become self-sacrificial? No, the monster under the bed would do no such thing.

Pitch laughs low to himself when he realizes this one has quite the offensive. "Oh, good try."

Pitch sinks into his own shadow and reappears to launch a strike at the nightmare's haunches. It springs away before he can do more than score a line on its flank. It spins and snaps at him, gouging his shoulder with too-sharp teeth before Pitch's sword threatens to take off its head.

_How can he be Fear anymore?_

They both recover to a wary distance; Pitch follows his own advice from before and seeks refuge in a pool of light. It's the terror more than the battle that has stolen his breath. That or he has expended himself with his shadow antics already. He is such a piddling thing these days, compared to his glory of old. He will never reach the same heights, not while the Guardians draw breath and the Moon shines from above.

Pitch draws a sudden deep breath of inspiration as the nightmare slinks low around him, probing for weakness. "Ahh, so that's who you are."

He turns with the circling beast, taking care to stay at the center of the street light's glow. "The black dog. Fear of the grim future." His mouth turns up at the corners. "I know what to do with you."

His voice rings out, "Heel!"

It lunges at him. He parries its jaws, ripostes with a slash that opens a deep gouge from its shoulder down its chest. The Grim makes a noise of wounded fury that is not quite a scream or a howl.

Which is answered, from much, much too close by far, far too many throats.

He almost forgot. The wolf does not hunt alone.

He dares not look away from this battle to watch the nightmares descend. It would only make the anticipation worse, in any case. The Grim darts in while the chorus still echoes, snapping low at his knees from the side. He does not have the room to swing and settles for lashing out with his sword hand; the pommel glances off gleaming teeth and closes the beast's jaws with a snap. The Grim cowers away, then springs up in a rush he just barely dodges. Momentum carries it beyond the light, too far before it can stop and turn.

He does not quite pant, his off hand pressing to his shoulder briefly only to come away covered with his own dark blood. He hastily scrubs it dry against his robe, not fool enough to risk a slick hand in battle. For its part, the Grim stalks with a hitch in its stride, favoring the forepaw with the wounded shoulder. If not for the Grim's cavalcade of cavalry, they would almost be evenly matched.

If what came before was a tornado, this is a hurricane. The howl of the nightmares in concert sounds like the roar of gale-force winds.

He can't let it shake him. He feints a slash, lets the Grim think it has dodged clear, then lunges to sink a thrust into its flank on its already-wounded side. His sabre tears free as momentum carries it along; the Grim scrabbles away on suddenly unsteady feet into the milling herd of the nightmares.

He is certain the Grim is about to be blown apart by its own typhoon.

The grin is wiped from his face when, instead of the cries of a Grim being torn to shreds, there is a nightmare's cut-off whinny and a sharp snapping noise. He unconsciously steps back to the center of the light, battering back a pair of would-be-opportunists nightmares who think him distracted.

And he is; he only notices the second when wicked teeth graze his arm and shred his sleeve. He tears away and strikes blindly, assured of a hit by its squeal of pain. His eyes don't leave the mass of nightmares where one suddenly towers over the rest. The black wolf-shadow nightmare throws its head back, swallowing a haunch of some unfortunate lesser evil. The Grim that slinks forward has easily doubled in size, and bears no signs of the wounds he has already dealt it.

It can keep this up all night, all week, all month- forever, so long as it has a ready supply of lesser brethren to cannibalize. How can he compete?

"Damned excitable dog. And me without a stick." He spins left to smite another lesser nightmare, taking it out at the knees, but yet another scores a raking hit on his back that drives him to one knee. He hisses imprecations and twists his sabre in his hands, reversing the grip to thrust behind him. His aim is true, not that it matters, as the Grim is charging low. He barely drops and rolls clear in time, has to cut away another nightmare for the space to stand.

His circle of light is now the eye of the storm of shadow and howling horrors.

All this to protect a pair of believers? Children that he might have fed to this herd not years earlier?

He can't be doing this for himself, no. If he wants to save his hide, he ought to run, to hide, to find some dark shelter the moon doesn't know.

Why hasn't he?

He snarls, bats away a battering hoof, and tries to track the Grim's movements through the smokescreen of its minions. He spits, "Forever taking the coward's way out!"

What is fear if not a coward? What shadow doesn't flee before the light?

The Grim scores claws down his side before he can turn and strike after it, a moment too late to connect. He struggles on, winded, wounded, and wearied. It cannot last, it does not last.

Under the Grim's guidance, they pry the chink in his armor wide open.

_He is not the Nightmare King, he is not the Boogeyman, he is not even a bad dream._

_He is not Pitch Black._

_Who is he?_

_He doesn't know._

He falls.

 

(He doesn't know anymore.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm a little late on this one, but at six and a half pages, I hope you can understand why! XD;;; Many thank yous to my beta Flidget for not letting me take the easy way out on any of the fight scenes. (The Epic Battle Chapter is probably going to kill me, and if it is awesome, it is going to be all to her credit.)
> 
> I love that everyone wants to know what Pitch looks like! XD Alas, Pitch does not care. The Guardians, however, might. . .


	9. Sweet dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't expect him to say thank you.

**Eight**

Sweet dreams. _(You can't expect him to say thank you.)_

 

Whatever he had expected to find, this is not it. Jack flies through Burgess at a not-entirely leisurely pace, pursued by a vague sense of dread and a leggy nightmare that keeps biting at his heels. He's not entirely sure the two are related.

It's still early for the first autumn frost that he trails behind him, gleaming in the grey predawn light. It takes him awhile to realize that he's glossing over the remains of what looks like one hell of a battle royale. Heaps of black nightmare sand are everywhere. If it wasn't for the strings of golden sand still hovering overhead, Jack would be a lot more worried than he is.

Yeah, the nightmares have been acting up, but that was all in the south. The nightmares never came to Burgess, not since they beat Pitch here. He's gotten used to thinking of Burgess as being . . . safe.

He only realizes he's paused when the nightmare shoves at him with its nose and huffs. "Yeah, yeah, going," he grumbles at it. "You're lucky I'm headed the same way."

He wants to see Sandy, to see Jamie, to know everything's okay. All the golden sand streams lead back through the city streets, over what must have been the battle grounds last night. Jack pulls up when he finally spots their originator: the Sandman, sitting cross-legged on a pillow of sand hovering over the green divider of a boulevard in the center of Burgess.

"Sandy! Are you okay?"

The little man looks up, and his eyes go wide before his face crumples in a surprisingly fierce snarl. Jack barely manages to freeze the golden sand whip before it can connect with the lone nightmare. "Whoa! Don't kill it!"

Sandy frowns with surprising intensity at Jack, who hurriedly waves placating hands. "It's been a weird night, long story, but it's not hurting me. It's just . . . herding me."

It's the truth. The damned thing showed up when he was minding his own business, just barely brushing back into the Northern hemisphere to drop an early layer of gilt on northern Canada as an arctic air mass moved south. He'd almost blasted the nightmare at first, but it didn't attack him, it just . . . harangued him with enormous golden eyes and kept attempting to chase him in this direction. Yeah, it creeps him out, but he keeps thinking of it like an enormous freaky dog. Which somehow makes the whole thing even more surreal since it really, really isn't one.

The golden man wrinkles his brow at Jack in concern, but he lets the whip dissolve back into his streams of dream sand.

The nightmare shies to the side, but ignores both of them in favor of snuffling at something on the ground underneath the Sandman's floating pillow. No, not something. A very familiar some _one_.

The Nightmare King is a pile of long black limbs crumpled onto his side, shadow robes a torn mess. A tiny golden butterfly performs loop-de-loops around his head. The nightmare plops right down next to him against his back, looking curiously protective.

Creepy horse that wanted Jack to follow it back to its master.

Yeah, he's not going to even try to read anything into this.

Jack squints, raises a hand, then lowers it. "Okay, as weird as my night was, I think yours takes the cake. You go first. What the hell happened here?"

Sandy looks deliberately across the swathes of golden and black sand wreathing the town, looks back to Jack, and shrugs.

Jack groans. "If you don't know. . . what about the kids? Jamie?"

He could swear Sandy is smirking at him as he presents the image of beds, kids properly tucked in and snoozing away. All right, so they're safe. "But were they part of . . . all this?"

Sandy nods, humor evaporating. He shows Jack the two boys, apparently being chased by nightmares, then . . . Pitch? Pitch saving them?

"Are you serious? Why would he do that?"

Sandy shrugs, then points back to his images as tiny-sand!Pitch shoves the boys on a big nightmare that takes off. . . and leads them to a tiny sand Sandman. The tiny Sandman descends on an image of Burgess in miniature, and sweeps away a horde of nightmares.

"Huh. . . okay. . . what were they after?"

This time, Sandy just points at Pitch. It's pretty obvious the guy's been through the wringer. He looks worse than he did when Jack saw him last, that Easter. They'd all figured Pitch was off somewhere licking his wounds, especially since the nightmares never did really let up. Except. . . this makes no sense.

"What . . . what _is_ he doing?" Jack rubs at his forehead. He trades glances with Sandy, then looks back at the two equally long-limbed shadows below. "Right. He's the only one with the answers."

 

He dreams of colors. Bright, vibrant shades that never appear in his grey-washed nights. He's in a garden, some formal arrangement of the like he's never seen, filled with flowers he doesn't recognize, listening to birdsong he's never heard. The breeze that ruffles his cloak brings a bittersweet scent that reminds him of her. . . The ghost of her hair left on pillows and linens long after.

Her? Someone dear. He should know, but he doesn't. Yet he knows this must be a dream. He smiles and brushes finger tips along the tops of trimmed hedges as he walks. The dark green leaves prickle despite his calluses, thick foliage springing back in his wake.

He finds peace in the ordered patterns like fractals, the way here red curls around orange and yellow, bordered by white. There, shades of blue and purple bloom like the swirls of a nebula against a backdrop of green. It's reassuring, that this place hasn't been darkened by shadow.

This is why he fights, what he would give his life to protect.

He turns a corner and is enveloped in a swarm of butterflies, just as fantastically colored as the carpet of blooms they alighted on. He breathes in and holds still against the fluttering of tiny wings; then they have passed, a delicate cloud becoming silhouetted against the bright sky.

He continues on with slow, easy steps that will not tax healing wounds, following some urge he doesn't know, until he hears a child's laughter, just around a bend. He pauses at an archway of vines out of sight, overwhelmed with fondness, and takes a moment to listen simply to that voice, to the unadulterated happiness, and knows that he is home.

He wakes with damp on his lashes and overwhelming feeling of . . . nostalgia. And loss. And he has no idea why. That was. . .

Nothing more than a dream. He knows perfectly well what dreams are; they're fabricated of the same stuff as nightmares except far less interesting. Pretty little fictions spun by hopeful little minds, under the guiding hand of the Sandman.

Hmph. Maybe his old nemesis was trying to take the opportunity to indoctrinate him in the joys of happy children. So much for that idea. Pitch Black wasn't made for daylight, for reverie, for laughter. Those weren't his formal gardens, his jewel-bright butterflies, his playing children.

The cold breeze dries his eyes and whispers of warning at the same time. He is not alone.

He is on his side, sprawled on hard earth, exposed to the elements. Still on the surface, then. Above him, he can hear a one-sided conversation: the littlest headache arguing with the greatest pain in his neck.

There's a reassuring chill presence at his back, shadows whispering of ocean depths and riptides. Ah, so Kelpie has returned. His eyes still closed, he feels for that echo of fear-of-failing and finds . . . nothing. Icarus has been dispatched. The Sandman never has played nicely with Pitch's toys. More importantly, the chorus-whisper of fears and lingering dread of the herd of nightmares is gone. It worked.

He considers vanishing into the shadows now, while the Guardians are still completely oblivious, then changes his mind when he realizes he's the topic of conversation. "If you're going to slander my name, Frost, you might as well do it to my face."

He opens his eyes to grey predawn skies, and unerringly pinpoints his current source of ire in time to watch the expression of discomfort and surprise flash across Jack Frost's face. He's perched on his staff only a handful of strides away. The Sandman is not much further, and Pitch carefully keeps a neutral expression on _that_ subject. Who knows what grudges he may hold?

He absolutely refuses to have this encounter with two Guardians from prone on the ground. He aches all over as he rolls to his feet, vision whiting out when he stands too quickly. Kelpie rises with him; Pitch lets one hand casually fall against her shoulder as his eyes focus. Damn. He's in no shape for a confrontation.

From the looks on the Guardians' faces, they're realizing that, too. The Sandman frowns at him, and even Frost raises his eyebrows. "Burgess looks like a war zone, and you look like a chew toy. What the hell happened?"

"Deja vu, Frost. I should think you know very well." Pitch narrows his eyes at the boy. "The Sandman I expected. What are _you_ doing here?"

"What?" Jack sounds completely clueless. Pity there's so little going on inside his pretty little head. Maybe he's better suited to the Guardians after all; there's a bullet well dodged.

Unexpectedly, the boy juts his chin towards Kelpie. "Hey, it was your creepy pet that brought me here."

The nightmare? Pitch furrows his brow as he remembers the task he'd set her. Kelpie shuffles a hoof against the grass, not quite sheepishly, and he feels the way she pulls delicately on the white-haired boy's fear. A phobia like that in so strong a spirit would draw her like a lodestone. What an unfortunate unintended consequence. He resists the urge to rub the bridge of his nose. "Since when were you afraid of drowning, Frost?"

"What?!"

"Nevermind." It hardly matters. Pitch glares at the traitorous (and guilty) nightmare. That was her idea of bringing the cavalry? Really, it's hard to get good help these days. "Kelpie, we're going to have to discuss your horrible sense of taste."

"You named it Kelpie?" Jack is almost laughing at him, sitting back on his heels on the crook without the least worry of tipping over. He is forever recklessly assured of himself; no wonder his acolyte saw nothing wrong with walking on roof edges.

Pitch all-but rolls his eyes. "She's the water-horse, Frost, she named herself."

"You should have named it Lassie."

Pitch throws one arm wide dismissively. "Even I know that's an outdated cultural reference. Do get with the times."

"Whoa, hey, when did that happen?" Jack is suddenly invading his space, pulling at his shredded coat. Pitch smacks his hand away with a hint of talons. The frost sprite barely ducks in time as Kelpie snaps her teeth at him.

"When did _what_?" Pitch bristles at both the question and inordinate attention. _Guardians_ \- either a complete lack of personal space is a prerequisite or it comes with the territory. A bit of a chicken and the egg conundrum, since he hardly knew any of them before, but certainly Jack hadn't exhibited this behavior when they spoke in Antarctica.

It's the Sandman who answers the question while Jack fends off the protective nightmare, pointing at Pitch's own torso. Pitch raises a brow and looks down at himself, noticing all the welts, bruises and lacerations he'd expected visible beneath the rags of his shadows. The dark claw marks from the Grim stand out in not-quite parallel lines raking down his side. "Last night, obviously."

Jack smacks Kelpie on the nose as he retreats back to his perch. "I meant the bit where it looks like something tried to cut you in half."

Oh. Pitch absently skates his hand along his own ribs, dismissively smoothing the remaining fabric down. If that's enough to rile up the delicate darlings he had better not let them see the set of scars on his back. He has quite the set of decorations, really. They don't interfere with his range of motion, and could hardly hurt an immortal, so he has no idea what the fuss is over. It's not like he experienced their creation. "Don't get excited, that's always been there."

"Oh." Jack doesn't look convinced, and for some reason, the Sandman bites his lip like he really would like to interrupt but isn't sure how. So long as he isn't butting in, Pitch ignores him.

"Thank you kindly for your concern," Pitch snipes back, none too pleased to realize that is the truth behind the Guardian's scrutiny. He's feeling rather underdressed for the occasion, really. At least that's a simple thing to fix. At his call his shadow swarms up to reshape his garments whole, the old wisps falling away to disintegrate in the weak sunlight before they even reach the ground.

And his audience is acting even more unusually than before. The Sandman holds up one hand as if he'd like to ask a question, then shakes his head and lowers it. Jack obviously goes right for it. "What's with the new duds?"

"Not all of us are impervious to cold, Frost."

"No, no, the. . . new look." Jack squints. "Some kind of uniform?"

"This?" Pitch glances down again. He's paid little attention to its changing over time, as his image is shaped by belief. The long riding coat is high-collared, double-breasted and elaborately cuffed. The tall boots are simply practical, given his obvious transport. The sword belt and sheath, of course, were necessary additions. "I didn't think you were one for _fashion_ , Frost. Keeping up with the latest trends?"

"Yeah, circa. . . I don't even know, but you are definitely defining retro."

They both startle when the Sandman snaps a golden whip in between them. Pitch has a moment of deep satisfaction when Jack falls off his staff, caught by a breeze before he can hit the ground. Sanderson lets the whip dissolve and brushes his hands together meaningfully before glaring at them over folded arms.

Pitch pats Kelpie's neck to settle her, the nightmare pinning her ears and dancing in place. "Feeling left out, Sanderson?"

The little man taps his tiny foot and points at his wrist as if to a watch, then to the lightening sky overhead. Jack sheepishly shrugs, looping an elbow around his staff to lean against it. "Sorry, Sandy. You know how I get with schedules."

Pitch scoffs under his breath, "Stars forbid you be reliable."

"Hey, I resemble that remark." Jack yelps and ducks as Sanderson shakes his finger in his face. "Right, right. Down to business."

The Sandman crafts the image of the two children aboard the large nightmare, then follows it with a question mark. Pitch stiffens and deliberately misinterprets, waving airily. "It got your attention, didn't it?"

"Wait, so that was the plan?" Jack is surprisingly quick to interpret, frowning at him.

Pitch shrugs, casually draping one arm over his nightmare's withers, "Plan would be a bit too strong of a word."

Neither Guardian looks like they're buying it. Jack shoots an uneasy glance to Sanderson, obviously hoping for some clarification or support. He doesn't get it. The golden man is inscrutable, his attention focus on Pitch. Jack tries fishing again, casting wider, "So you hoped we'd save you?"

"Don't be ridiculous; you've proven you'd throw me to the wolves. I'd be a fool to expect mercy from you." His hands form talons that bite into his palms. "I _expected_ you to save the children. That's what you Guardians _do_ , isn't it?"

"Yeah. It is." And Jack is suddenly far too sharp, changing direction like a gust of wind in a storm. "Why would you?"

Sanderson interrupts with an image of Pitch boosting the children onto Icarus. Of course, he'd have spoken with the children; the Sandman knew exactly what he'd told them. What he didn't know was why. Hence the inquisition. Jack catches on first, straightening from his lazy slouch. "Wait, wait. You touched them."

"How dare I lay a hand on your precious last light, et cetera et cetera." Pitch waves a still sharp-taloned hand.

Jack refuses to take the bait, as relentless as a blizzard gale. Maybe his brain isn't frozen solid after all. "That's what this is about, isn't it? They're your believers. _Your_ last light."

That strikes uncomfortably close to home, and they all know it. Pitch draws up to his full height, narrowing his eyes at both Guardians. His taloned hand clenches over his heart. His voice is deadly soft, "And what did _you_ do, when your last believers were threatened?"

He pauses, then smiles coldly with too-sharp teeth. "Ah. Yes. You showed no mercy."

He cuts his eyes over to the Sandman, "Don't think I owe you anything for this. Your saccharine attempt at manipulation was far too obvious. We're merely breaking even."

Frost is obviously choking on his own internal conflict and likely seconds from plastering him with another miniature ice age, if the sudden drop in temperature is anything to go by. Sanderson just shakes his head sadly, then cups his hands together and opens them, revealing another golden butterfly. It flutters delicately towards Pitch through the swirl of flurries that are far too early.

Pitch flinches aside before the fragile dream can reach him, hauling himself up onto the nightmare's back gracelessly. He aches to return to the deep shadows, to have nothing to do with busybodies and do-gooders until he is whole. He spins Kelpie away and snarls, "It's not my delusion, Sandman. Keep your fantasies."

Pitch kicks Kelpie into a canter down the boulevard, black sand remnants rising from the ground behind him like banners unfurling in the cold wind. When they reach the deepest shadow of a tall building, they vanish, nightmare, nightmare sand, and Nightmare King alike.

 

In his wake, Jack lets his pent-up energy go, a long cold breeze whistling through the streets of Burgess before fading out like a gusty sigh.

Sandy removes his restraining hand from Jack's shoulder with a final pat, something like reassurance and empathy at the same time. Jack slants a look at the dreamweaver, "Well, he's gone now. And not even a thank you. I don't get that guy."

Sandy smiles faintly, giving Jack a little shrug. He makes an image of a broom sweeping dust under a carpet, and it takes Jack a moment to realize he means the black sand, too.

"Yeah, I saw he took the sand. But that doesn't mean it's gone, does it?"

Sandy nods solemnly, pleased that Jack picked up the levels of meaning.

Jack pulls his staff free from the ground, slinging it over his shoulders casually. "Whatever he's up to, I don't think the nightmares going after the kids was his idea. He looks like death warmed over. So what do we do now?"

Sandy frowns at him, then made a tiny replica of the Santoff Claussen with a rippling sky overhead.

"Call the Guardians? Yeah. The others should know what's up." Jack lifts off into the air, prepared to fly north, when Sandy shakes his head. "You've got an idea?"

Sandy hesitates, then nods. And flashes an image of a tooth and Pitch's silhouette in his new gear.

Jack almost drops his staff. Five years of arguing over it and now? "You changed your mind?"

Sandy tilts his head, golden eyes focusing on where the Nightmare King disappeared, and finally turns up his palms. Jack guesses that means "We'll see" or maybe "It couldn't hurt to try." He smiles, hesitant at first, then turning into a blinding grin. "Hey, if there's hope, right?"

Bunny is going to flip his lid. Pitch will probably threaten to skin the kangaroo for gloves and they'll be glaring daggers at each other the whole time. What the hell, why not?

This'll be _fun_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of 3/15, this is the betaed version!  
> The next chapter has been written and is in the process of being spiffed up! Since it looks like there will be heavy edits, I won't be posting it until we're all squared away. It might actually break down into two good-sized chapters rather than one monster. As always, you can keep track of where I'm at on tumblr/dreamwidth. Look for a Monday update!


	10. Committee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> None of us is as dumb as all of us.

**Nine**

Committee. _(None of us is as dumb as all of us.)_

 

Pitch heads for the equator, the sunlight, the harsh shadows of high sun. Small fishing villages to luxury beach resorts to crowded street markets: he must keep moving. It's worth it to hope that the Guardians will not find him, just that little bit longer. Kelpie is certainly pleased by the proximity to water amongst the islands, he is anything but. The light makes him prickly and irritable, and heat with humidity is unbearably worse.

He leaves the water horse to her sport, chasing waves (and tourists) along the beaches. Alone he walks narrow city streets, trying to find solace in shadows cast by close buildings. His one concession to the heat is to throw off his heavy coat, carrying it draped over one shoulder. No children glimpse him, no one turns their head as if catching a thin sliver of black out of the corner of their eye.

They used to know him here: the Small Man, el Cuco, Bicho Papao, Jumbi, Metminwi. Any of a dozen different names for the Boogeyman. Not so, any more.

Instead there is just . . . fear. A net cast adrift. It floats with the currents and eddies in street corners of slums, catches on sharp corners of fragile minds.

It would be too much to hope that no nightmares likewise wash up on the island shoals. He can sense their heavy presence, even more here than in the north where he spent the summer. So he stays ahead of the night, as much as possible.

That works about as well as can be expected.

Pitch hears the deep, inhaling snuffle from a block away. The dread is low, slow; as insidious as a wave lapping at your ankles before high tide. Pitch is no fool; he knows where this is going.

His casual walking pace turns into a stalk, hunting out the source of the fear before the nightmares find it. It certainly isn't him this time; oh no, he's just caught in the crossfire. As usual.

A young boy slumps against a wall on a front stoop, curled up beside his watchful older sister. Asleep. Completely, utterly oblivious. Marvelous.

Pitch resists the urge to swear and deliberately stops in front of the elder sister's gaze. She's maybe thirteen, fourteen; her dark eyes too old for a face that should be more naturally rounded. She looks straight through him. There are no believers here, not even in shadows.

He can't wake the boy, he can't influence the sister, and he can hardly control the nightmare. To walk away means to face the same nightmares later en masse. Well. At least he can use the boy as bait.

"I suppose it was time I was proactive in cleaning up the infestations."

He turns his back on the children in time to see the first nightmare snuffle around the corner. It's strangely slow-moving; Pitch raises a brow and calls up a handful of the nightmare sand. His will spins it into a spiraling sharp-tipped blade that he launches one-handed like a javelin. He aims well; it takes the nightmare in the chest and turns it into an oil-spill of black under oblivious pedestrians' feet.

If all of this child's nightmares are like this one, he's merely in for a spot of target practice.

Then the black sand pulls itself back out of the street, hauls itself up in shambles, just as a second appears, staggering alongside the first. He can see light through the wreckage of its chest from the missile's passage. Oh. Oh, that's just precious.

Pitch glares over his shoulder at the sister. "I really blame you for this. Even I know the boy's too young for zombies."

At least now he knows the name of the game. With an air of morbid curiousity, he repeats his throw at the now-closer nightmare, aiming for the head. This time it seems inclined to stay down, yet another pair of nightmare surges up from the ground alarmingly close. Pitch whips the coat from over his shoulder into their faces, spoiling their attack, and draws his blade.

A conjured bolt of sand deals with one before it can untangle itself, and a quick slashing cut answers for the other. Already more nightmares are weaving drunkenly between pedestrians who are quickly finding better places to be. A street vendor shivers as a spray of nightmare sand brushes his shoulders, then gamely continues barking his wares. Pitch does not quite sigh as he looks at what appears to be his entertainment for the evening.

Headshots and decapitations it is. Zombie nightmares. _Really._

He's lost track of the time and his kill count when the aura of the street-turned-battle-field changes. Tension and heightened awareness gives way to . . . good humor. It isn't as if he hasn't been expecting this moment. It's just that the other shoe dropped about a fortnight later than he was expecting. For all the Guardians are all about their scheduled dates, they're rather tardy in rounding him up.

He hears North before he sees him, hollering some sort of inane battle cry before launching into the horde of shambling nightmares with all the good grace of a bowling ball into pins. Naturally, the mob sways away from North and sends more towards Pitch. He ducks quickly between two and strikes from behind before they can turn, one then the other on the backhand. How very like North, to come in swinging his dual scimitars with no tactics. The Guardians give him headaches simply by existing.

"You threw zombie invasion and you did not invite me?"

"Don't sound so insulted, North." Pitch skips back from a lunging mouth and sends a bolt of black sand down its gullet instead. He is no mood to entertain guests. "Would I _ever_ invite you?"

He thinks North might be laughing, the insane man. The Guardian shoulders his way through the already-dispersing mob. "We must work on your people skills!"

North is an over-enthusiastic but competent fighter; he culls the herd in quick strokes like he's scything wheat. Pitch has long-since become efficient at the routine: block a ragged hoof here, slice through a rotting neck there, dodge wicked teeth and give them a point-blank head shot for their troubles. It's strange to see sinew and muscle, gore and rot on what should be non-corporeal creatures, but these nightmares have been running wild for quite some time.

It's quick work from there; it's rather hard to have a nightmare in the presence of the bloody Santa Claus after all. So the boy is one of North's cadre. Pitch does not quite roll his eyes as he puts down the last nightmare North incompletely dispatched with a casual downward stab. He is not the least surprised.

Behind him, North leans over the children, patting the boy on the cheek. Pitch suspects he slips some oddments into the boy's pockets while he's at it; North is anything but subtle. "Time to wake up, da? To go home to dinner and family. To be safe."

Pitch snorts, sheathing his sword now that the coast is clear. Traffic that had slowed, inexplicably warned off by the ill feeling the nightmares produced, has resumed. The children chose a busy street to panhandle on, of course. It's up to him to point out the obvious, "This is their home, North, as much as anywhere is. That girl is his family. There is nowhere safe."

"You do not know that," North protests.

Pitch knows a losing battle when he sees one. He instead watches the boy open his eyes, tugging at his sister's arm. "Mia, Mia, I had a dream. . ."

Pitch snorts under his breath as he reclaims his coat from the shadows, "I should hope so. No more zombies for you."

The boy's eyes go wide. Pitch does not quite fumble in his movements, shrugging back into his sleeves and smoothing out the long folds. If the boy's watching, even more reason to be presentable.

"I saw. . . you fought them off. They're gone?"

"You're still dreaming?" The sister snorts, shaking the bowl in front of them. "Always talking to things that aren't there. . ."

Pitch ignores her interruption. "You saw. Then you know how to fight them off."

"You mean. . . " The boy is still half-asleep. Or is quite slow on the uptake.

"There is no point in being afraid of what you can handle. Face them next time and win." Pitch's eyes linger on the thin limbs tucked under the boy. "On your own two feet."

He turns to North without watching to see if his suspicions are true. "We're done here."

North blinks, looking between them like he's been caught entirely off guard. "Da? Ah!" He turns to the child, smiling bright. "You take care and be good! Streets are no good at night."

"I ain't afraid of the dark," the child scorns, but ducks his head in bashful wonder.

Pitch isn't about to stay and watch the Guardian be heaped with childish adoration. He sets off at a punishing pace, intent on reclaiming his steed. Kelpie is here somewhere, after all, and it seems they have overstayed their welcome.

He doesn't bother to slow or turn when North's optimism looms up at his heels.

"Trying to sneak up on a shadow is an exercise in futility."

North takes long strides through the crowd to catch up to Pitch, chuckling. "Would not have to sneak up on you if you would stay still!"

"I'm hardly running," Pitch snipes back, finally coming to a halt when his shadow touches true dark. Humans bustle straight through Pitch without so much as shivering; he folds his arms to brace against the sensation. It's not as though it's anything new. "What do you want now, North?"

North ever-so-politely stops in front of him, just a bit too close and far too jovial to be casually conversational. There are no children around to stare, yet even adults ease out of his way automatically, as if passing around an invisible island. "You are hard man to find, Pitch! I did not believe Manny when he said tropics. But he is right, and here you are!"

Pitch doesn't even have to glance skyward to know that there is a full moon hanging over the horizon, and that explains everything about the delay. Can't the Guardians do anything without _his_ direction?

He knew he should have stayed underground despite the rogue nightmares. As always, not quite paranoid enough. North pats the hilts of his swords and continues, "And good timing for good exercise, da? You surprise me, Pitch!"

Pitch deadpans, "Yes, North, I summon nightmares to exercise all the time."

"Really? I did wonder," North muses.

"I was hardly the one controlling the program. It's a _wonder_ those still ran on hooves."

"But all nightmares have hooves," North completely misses the point.

"So long as I'm the Nightmare King." That's as much answer as he's going to feed the Guardians. Pitch grits his teeth and repeats, slowly, "What. Do. You. Want, North?"

North beams and smooths his beard, obviously pleased with himself. "Pleasure of your company!"

Pitch will wish himself to non-existence quite soon if North just stands here and radiates cheer at him. Like a small bonfire of good will that refuses to go out. Pitch pinches the bridge of his nose. "Oh, fantastic. Now you're a comedian. You do know what they say about old dogs and tricks, North."

Some of the charm slides off North's grin, bringing him just that bit closer to manic. "You are invited to North Pole."

And . . . oh, that is actually dangerous. Pitch would step back, but then there would be nowhere to run to. He stopped exactly so where his own shadow just overlaps with that of a sign overhead; an easy to miss escape route. So he stares North down and resists flinching. "No, really. I must have misplaced my RSVP."

North shrugs, "We did try to give Jamie message for you. Now everyone is waiting!"

To the children he has been deliberately ignoring lest he run straight into a Guardian. Much less all of them. On a full moon. He is not the least surprised. Pitch drums his fingers against his opposite arms. "You're crazy if you think I'll walk into a trap like that."

North brushes his hands together, "Pssh. No sack made yet that can catch the Boogeyman." He sighs his disappointment, "I tried!"

Pitch can't help but stare at the Guardian, fascinated. "What _do_ they do, when one of you goes mad? Send them to me?"

It completely goes over North's head. He laughs, extending a hand. "So you come, da?"

"Are we having the same conversation? I don't think we are."

North's eyes actually twinkle. It is a thing of terror. "You come now, or I send elves to bring you your gift instead."

Pitch blanches. "You wouldn't."

"Yetis are too smart to try. Elves will keep trying until all your nightmares have bells on." North nods firmly.

North has actually come up with a working battle strategy. Wonders never cease.

Now he has to worry about his own state of sanity, fantastic. He throws his hands up and hisses, "Fine. Let's get this over with."

At least the Santoff Claussen will be in shadow. That's some small mercy.

North grins as he pulls out one of his snow globes, murmuring to it in Russian before tossing it at their feet. "See, Pitch. Old dog knows fetch."

The riotous swirl of color keeps him from having to respond.

 

They are deposited in the ever-so-familiar globe room of the Santoff Claussen, Christmas lights providing half the illumination and a cozy sort of cheer. There's no telling if Pitch's nausea is from the method of travel or the sheer amount of warm fuzzies being produced by the Guardians in attendance. The overgrown rabbit heckles North, "Told y' the blighter wouldn't come."

North steps aside to reveal his passenger with a grand sweep of his arms. "See? Must have a little faith, Bunny."

Pitch surveys the lot of them coolly; Toothiana hovers near the globe, twisting her hands together nervously. The Sandman nods to Pitch from where he floats besides a fireplace. Jack lounges on the edge of a table, tightening his grip on his staff. The rabbit is at the other side of the globe, sharpening his boomerang in obvious threat. North stands confidently at the control panel in the center, the only one who seems self-assured, but of course, this is his home. All Guardians present and accounted for.

Pitch scowls and waves at the room. "As nostalgic as all this is, I'm sure I'm as thrilled to be here as you are to have me. Get on with it, North."

North half-turns to stand between him and the others, waving to the fairy of all people. "Ah, but I am not why you are here. Tooth, explain?"

She flutters forward, setting her jaw as if expecting a fight. "I have something you lost."

Pitch raises a brow at her. He can't imagine what she thinks she has of his. "What?"

"Your memories."

She's decisive in her mistake, he'll grant her that. Pitch snorts, "Don't be ridiculous. I don't have any."

Jack pipes up from the sidelines, "Your tooth says otherwise."

"My tooth," he repeats skeptically. He can't even bring himself to glare at them for this, it's so patently ridiculous.

"The one Tooth knocked out for you, in Burgess." Jack hops off the edge of the table, idly twirling his staff in his hands.

Pitch frowns at them both. "I don't seem to be missing any."

And before he knows it, there's a blur of wings and tiny prying fingers rather more than invading his personal space. From far too close, Toothiana pipes, "Oh! Oh, there's a new one. It's not . . . not real. It's made of belief, not memories."

"Strewth, Tooth!" Rescue comes in the form of an immense paw hauling the fairy back as Pitch snaps his jaw closed.

Pitch grimaces and wipes at his face, snarling, "I _beg_ your pardon-"

North chides, "What have we told you about hands in mouth, Tooth?"

Toothiana giggles nervously from where she's now behind Bunnymund's protective hulking shoulder, shrugging. "Ehe, bad habit?"

"Trust me, she does that to everyone, not just if they've got shark teeth." Jack smirks and loops his arms over his staff. "So you didn't remember missing a tooth?"

"I had rather more pressing engagements in the past few years than a trifling matter of dentistry," Pitch drawls. And yet. . . he thinks he recalls the encounter on the ice. Something about a quarter. Just before. He folds his arms, leaning back. "I didn't think you returned what you paid for."

Toothiana hesitates, glancing to her fellows for guidance. North steps in, rubbing his hands together. "Of course, is exchange."

"For what?" Pitch is instantly on guard; this is far more what he expected of them. The Guardians can spout their good intentions to the sky all they want; what they actually show to darkness is nothing less than ruthless.

"Memories for information." North beams, "And perhaps we help each other, da?"

Pitch scowls. "I see no reason to cooperate with you. I don't have memories."

Jack butts in, "And how would _you_ know what you've forgotten?"

Jack waits until he's got Pitch's attention to add, "I didn't."

Damn the child. Of them all, Jack would be the one to know what a carrot information can be. "Even if I had memories, you're assuming that I'd want them."

Tooth wrings her hands. "You do. Have memories. There's . . . there's a lot in there."

It's the Sandman's hesitant nod that actually confirms it for him.

His heart twists.

North drops a heavy hand on his shoulder, "Of course you want memories, Pitch. Show him, Bunny."

The rabbit scowls, pulling out an egg from his bandolier. He cracks it open with a twist from each paw, showing something sparkling gold in the center. Shaped like. . .

"A locket?" Pitch doesn't realize he's spoken until his voice echoes hollow in his own ears. And his hand reaches traitorously for something missing just above his heart.

"That's. . . that's what your memories said it should be." True to form, Toothiana sounds sympathetic. And he could almost believe she would give it to him, right then, no questions asked.

He is nowhere near so kind.

Pitch inhales sharply. "Put it away."

So he can concentrate. The sooner this extortion is done the sooner he can escape. He wraps dignity and purpose around him like a cloak, and turns towards North. "And what expertise do you need from the Nightmare King?"

North shrugs, "Nightmares, what else?"

Bunny stamps. "Yer ponies've been runnin' wild and keepin' us busy all over. Never seen anything like it before."

"They'll terrorize children and not let up," Tooth says.

"Even we can't turn them back," Jack offers. "Sandy's the only one who can."

Sanderson contributes an image of a herd of nightmares, of which one stands larger than the others, then warps into a new, terrible shape. That shape flickers between several different forms; here a wolf, then a snake, a sphinx- all fantastic, recognizable horrors. All which take the combined Guardians to dissolve back into sand. That's some small vindication, at least, that he fared better on his own against one even his current state than they did.

North concludes, "They are very strong. We thought they were yours, but now. . . not so much."

Pitch scoffs, "As always, you miss the obvious."

"What—I knew yah were the source of all this!"

"The source, oh yes, but the fault?" Pitch laughs, and even his peals of laughter drip derision. "No, you fools, the fault lies with _you_."

"What. . .?"

"What, you never contemplated the _consequences_ of simply watching the nightmares drag me off to be consumed?"

Jack's face goes through contortions as he repeats the word, "Consumed. . . you mean. . . they ate you?!"

"Yes, Jack, that is what consumed means." Pitch turns on his heel, pacing the length of the room, coat flaring behind him. "They tore me to pieces and ate my strength. And now I come to find out you've all been chasing scraps of my stolen power around the world, ever since." He spins again to see their reactions. He smirks, "It's delicious, really."

And he means that in more ways than one. Their disgust, horror, and alarm helps fill a dark empty space left in him by their own actions. Or inaction, as the case may be. The one least surprised is his opposite number; instead of fear, the Sandman radiates sorrow. Too little too late, Pitch sneers at him. "And what do you plan to do now?"  
Jack rallies first, "They're using your power, right? So. . . if you were there to get it back. . ."

"I could take back my power and return them to normal, yes. Assuming I can beat them." Pitch rolls his eyes. "You saw the Grim. Easier said than done."

Jack winces, "That's what went after Jamie?"  
"Yes, I assume you managed to contain it." Pitch raises a brow when Jack looks to the Sandman, and the little dreamweaver shakes his head.

"Oh, for. . . You drove it off but didn't kill it?"

Sanderson nods.

"Please tell me there's someone watching the boys. A yeti, one of your bloody stone eggs, something."

Pitch scans their faces, looking for a hint he's guessed correctly. When there's only blank looks in response, he snaps, "You morons."

He spins abruptly, startling more than one of them into reaching reflexively for weapons, but he pays them no mind. He stalks to the shadows against the wall, reaching out a tendril of will to draw in a cloud of nightmare sand. It's a shame Icarus was so rudely discorporated last time; it seems his task is incomplete. Had the Sandman thought it gone forever? Pitch hopes so; the Guardians deserve the rude surprise for forgetting that fear can't be killed, only banished.

Pitch focuses on the familiar _fear-of-failing_ that shapes the heavy-built nightmare. He can hear the rabbit cursing, Tooth's squeak and Jack's yelp—of course, none of them had seen him form nightmares through the shadows before, much less this one.

"Icarus."

The giant head bows, one hoof pawing at the stone floor. The nightmare stays half within shadow, half manifested within the Santoff Claussen. Pitch places his palm on the broad bridge of its roman nose, and states calmly for the benefit of the fools behind him. "Go to the boys. Keep mine safe. If anything threatens them that you cannot handle, return to me at once."

The nightmare thrums under his hand, inhaling the scent of Pitch's fear. This one is hungry, and it craves his power to see it through the mission. Pitch closes his eyes and _pushes_ \- what would happen if he lost his few believers, what he would suffer because the Guardians were blind idiots, that gut-wrenching feeling of not knowing if he has already failed. . . The nightmare exhales, satisfied, and Pitch opens his eyes, removes his hand with one last shove.

"Now go."

It takes a twist of his power to see it off, the enormous nightmare stepping backwards and vanishing into the shadows, where it will no doubt reappear on the streets of Burgess, as Pitch wills it. He will see things through, if no one else will. He turns back to the room of watching Guardians and raises a brow. "Well, someone had to."

He is very careful not to stagger, to keep his steps smooth as he returns to the center of the room to lean back against a table. He flaunts his nonchalance, and frankly, they probably hate him enough to buy it entirely. Except the Sandman is watching him with particular focus; of them all, he would be the one to know exactly what Pitch has done. Pitch does not let his gaze stray towards the little golden man.

"Wait, why would the nightmares go after Jamie again? What's going on?" Jack at least has some inkling to ask the right questions.

"Because your beloved last light is vulnerable, obviously." Pitch takes in the empty stares, and rubs at his temples. "No, of course you hadn't realized the depth of the problem. My mistake; I keep having to revise my expectations ever downwards."

"So explain the bloody problem." Bunnymund stares at him challengingly, "Ain't been any issues with the ankle biters since we beat you."

Pitch drums long fingers on the table in a desperate bid for patience. At least the Guardians are being considerate enough to wine and dine him on their fear for his time. "Let me see if I can use small enough words for you: the nightmares have been a problem for believers."

He waits for the nods, then continues, "But not for Jamie, because your saving grace rejected fear."

"Wait, you mean-"

"Until I reintroduced him to the concept, yes, your brightest believer was completely immune to fear. The nightmares could not possibly feed on him then."

Jack protests, "Hey, it's not bad that Jamie wasn't afraid-"

"And over-saturated in fun, wonder, and all your vices." Pitch rolls his eyes. " _My_ believer all but hauled him away from certain death by the scruff of his neck and he was never afraid. I'm frankly amazed the boy survived your benign neglect this long."

Pitch smirks nastily, "What do you think happens when life is just a game, Frost?"

He knows that barb strikes well when the boy flinches, sharp and delicious guilty fear spiking. North interrupts decisively, "Pitch, do not be rude. You are guest."

Pitch grudgingly acknowledges the statement with a tilted head; it would hardly suit to start a fight here now, outnumbered and weakened without even his prize for cooperating. North looks around the room for acknowledgment, "So too much of a good thing is bad, da? Like too many cookies."

Bunnymund grumps, "So a little bit of fear ain't bad. But the nightmares. . . what's to keep this new nightmare o' yours from goin' after the sprogs too?"

"It won't." Pitch leans back, lets his eyes go half-lidded with lazy deception. "Ask the Sandman if you don't believe me."

It's a bit of sleight of hand, to deflect attention and yet hope that Sanderson can't communicate adequately what it is that Pitch has done, but Pitch is not above playing the Guardians against each other. The only one he can't risk alienating is Toothiana, but she's being cautious, overrun by the more boisterous members. Pitch wonders if she ever regrets joining the eternal boys club.

The little golden man looks from Pitch to the group and back again, a small furrow in his brow. At last, he nods, presenting the image of Pitch with his hand on the nightmare's nose in miniature.

"What, that's it? Yah touch it and it's yours?" Bunnymund challenges, "So why aren't yah out pettin' ponies?"

Pitch reminds himself that contrary to his desires, having the rabbit for dinner will not actually help in the long run. "It's not that simple."

Jack restlessly passes his staff back and forth, bare feet tapping on the floor. "So you can control some of the nightmares now, but not others?"

"Correct."

"So what's the difference?"

Sometimes, Pitch suspects that Jack is the only one of the Guardians with a brain not rotted by saccharine good intentions. Or at least the only one willing to ask him the useful questions; he can see the rabbit looking at Jack oddly, like he suspects Jack of divided loyalties. Oh, distrust still runs deep, doesn't it? Pitch doesn't truly wish to indulge their prying, but he's intrigued at this apparent divide in the Guardians. If he cooperates, will they only suspect Jack more?

"The difference is in their origins, mostly."

"How do you make nightmares?"

Oh, please. And he had been doing so well. Pitch leans back on one hand and gesticulates with the other. "Well, Jack, when one nightmare and another nightmare love each other very much. . ." He slaps his open hand down on the table. "You cannot possibly be that dense!"

"Oi, blighter." Bunnymund takes three quick strides into his space, one paw seizing on his collar. "Y' forget where yah are and who yah're talking to?"

Even hauled up at an uncomfortable angle, Pitch merely stares back at the rabbit. "Did you? Look at you, trying to play the enforcer. As if I don't make your tail twitch, to go running hippity-hop home. Prey instincts are ever so difficult to get rid of, aren't they?"

The rabbit lifts him clear off the floor before North intervenes, "Bunny! Enough."

Bunnymund drops him with obvious distaste, stepping off without turning his back on Pitch. "I don't know what yah think yah're going to get out of this pommy bastard, mate."

Pitch brushes imaginary fur off his shadow-black coat, huffing. "Nothing of use, if you keep asking stupid questions." He glances towards where the locket-holding egg has been placed, back between the Sandman and the fairy. "If you're going to hold my _reward_ hostage for my time and good behavior, then at least use it wisely."

Toothiana hedges, "What _would_ you ask?"

Pitch sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Do I have to spell it out for you? _Tactical_ questions. I'm not going to ask myself."

North hums thoughtfully, "How many nightmares?"

"Please, you might as well ask the Sandman how many dreams there are in a night. It's not like the little fairies, or knowing how many children have been _good_." Pitch straightens his cuffs, walking across the floor to the globe to gesture pointedly at where tiny lights twinkle in and out. "It's not dependent on _belief_. There's as many nightmares as there are fears. Some are just . . . stronger than others."

Jack snorts, leaning on his staff next to North. "Okay, now you're just dodging. So you don't know exactly. Rough estimate, how many did you have at Burgess?"

"Thousands, easily."

"And strong ones like the Grim that can kick your ass?"

"I don't know." Pitch doesn't turn but looks back over his shoulder at Jack's disbelieving noise. "Unlike some of us here, I don't deliberately seek out battles that I know I'll lose."

Jack's smirk widens. "But you totally did."

Pitch can't help grimacing in distaste because, unfortunately, the brat is right. "Don't count on a repeat performance when it comes back."

"Why are you so sure that it'll come back?" Toothiana asks.

A better question, finally. "That's their nature. Fears will always come back to feed on the minds they prey on."

"Waaaait, what do you mean by that?"

Pitch waves a hand at Jack. "Oh look, a prime example. Do you remember Kelpie?" A twist of his hand and will and she is there, whispering of dark depths and roiling currents as she boils out of his shadow.

"Your creepy Lassie nightmare?" Jack is the only one who didn't jump, giving Pitch a sardonic knowing look. "Yeah, it's familiar."

"She should be. Each nightmare is based in a fear." Pitch drops his hand to the nightmare's neck, and lofts his brows at Jack. "Why, this one is the fear of drowning."

Jack flinches, just a little, and Pitch chuckles. "See? She can always find you. And so long as you are the strongest source of fear, she will."

Bunny stiffens at the implied threat, and even North bristles, but Jack waves them back. "Chill, guys. The worst it can do is creep at me." Jack scruffs a hand through his hair. "And now you're distracting us again."

Pitch smirks, throwing the Guardians a mocking half-bow. This is easily the best meal he's had in years. "Oh, you had a point to get to? Do forgive me."

North clears his throat. "Yes, there is point. To protect the children."

"Jamie." Jack thumps his staff against the floor. "He's the strongest believer, so that's why the nightmares are going after him? Because his fear is also strong?"

Pitch winds his fingers through Kelpie's mane, letting his shoulders lean back against her flank. "Are you asking or stating, Jack?"

"Huh. Guess that answers that question," Jack says. "So they'll be back for him. What can we do to stop them?"

Bunnymund twists his boomerang in his hands, glowering at Pitch. "Same thing we've done with all the others. Turn 'em back into dream sand."

"Then you hardly need me at all," Pitch states breezily. "So consider yourself forewarned and forearmed. Am I free to go?"

"We don't _need_ yah, yah rotten-"

"Wait!" Tooth blurts out. "Could you. . . _could_ you unravel them?"

"Turn the nightmares back into dream sand?" Pitch arches a brow at the fairy queen. "In theory. In practice that would be rather counter-productive for me, wouldn't it?"

Tooth frowns at him, apparently gathering her courage. "But you don't like the nightmares running wild either. They would never behave like this if you were in control."

"Oh, _now_ you notice. If wishes were fishes," Pitch scoffs, gesturing towards the Sandman. "I'm not the one who deals with such things. I deal in _realities_. The reality is, I can't help you."

"Can't, or wont?" Jack challenges.

"I think you're mistaking me for someone who gives a damn."

"No, I don't think so." Jack juts his chin out, "I saw the aftermath in Burgess. You looked like hell, because you went after the thing that was going to eat Jamie."

"It also wanted to eat _me_ , thank you. Excuse me for wishing to avoid being the main course. There is such a thing as enlightened self-interest."

The Sandman flails his hands wildly, attempting to get their attention from where he's walked to the center of the floor. North crouches, "Yes, Sandy?"

Sanderson scowls at all of them, evidently peeved at having been ignored for far longer than he feels reasonable, and starts off a series of sand images. The herd of nightmares again, the one that towers larger- the Grim. The Grim eating the other nightmares, which makes the Guardians gasp- really, hadn't they already heard this? Pitch watches with boredom as Sanderson reaches the evident end of his production, showing a . . . broom sweeping under carpet? Really.

You would think he would have a better system for communicating with this bunch of idiots by now.

Except, Jack makes a noise like he's been beaten over the head with a clue as Sanderson repeats the image of Pitch summoning up Icarus. North looks between the Sandman and Frost with confusion. "I do not understand. Jack?"  
"Yeah, I get it." Jack points at Pitch. "Once you turn the rogues back into nightmare sand, they're yours again. If you fight with us, you can reclaim more sand and get stronger." Jack glances down at the dreamweaver's tiny folded arms and interprets the balanced scale image he projects. "Maybe not all of it but more than you would get otherwise, right?"

The brat challenges Pitch, "How's that for enlightened self-interest?"

"You're forgetting something, aren't you?" Pitch hums, patting Kelpie's neck ostentatiously. "This one came to me. Who says there aren't more loyal nightmares who'll return on their own? It's just a matter of time."

Bunnymund stamps, "Y' think we really want this blighter getting stronger? We're just gonna be feedin' him 'is teeth again sooner or later."

"Look on bright side, Bunny. Could be beginning of a new era!" North has evidently regained his footing, and is gathering momentum. "Guardians and Boogeyman on same side, who knows what we can do?"

Pitch and Bunnymund exchange looks when they simultaneously make unimpressed noises. It's the last thing he wants to be in agreement with the rabbit on, but he is. Better to stop this nonsense before North truly gets going. Pitch scoffs, "Well, it's certainly the end of an era. You can be proud. There's no Boogeyman any more. You lot saw to that."

Toothiana gasps, "You mean. . ."

"The Boogeyman's nothing but a bad dream. Nonexistent." Pitch's smile is sharp and uneven, "You wouldn't know what it's like, would you? If I were like _you_ , I'd be done for."

North rumbles, "They do not, but da, Pitch. I have seen."

Bunnymund shuffles uneasily, and the Sandman just looks on with sad, old eyes. The dreamweaver is not one to have worn many faces, but he understands. Pitch already regrets mentioning it; he doesn't need their _sympathy_.

Jack glances between them, "Wait. I'm missing something, because, obviously, you're _right here_."

"You are young, Jack. Too young to know changing of names." North heaves a sigh. "Guardians are . . . icons. Children do not forget us. Do not ask us to change. That is . . . that is news, Pitch. You are still Pitch?"

"For the time being, it seems," Pitch answers guardedly. Dark and fear do still go together, after all. And fear never dies, no matter what name it wears. A lesser spirit would have guttered out like a dowsed candle.

"Is even more important that we help each other, da? To help the children."

"Oh yes, do try to manipulate me while I'm _vulnerable_." Pitch snaps, "I'm still not a fool, North. I'm not one of you."

"He's just trying to help!" Toothiana buzzes angrily. "Being a Guardian means always trying to help. To see the best in the world."

Pitch splays his hands to take in the room. "You look ridiculous trying to hold the moral high ground while holding my _memory_ hostage. Excuse me for finding your high horse a bit hypocritical."

"Bunny." North is not nearly as jolly now. "Give it to him."

"What-"

"He is right." North folds his arms, staring at the Nightmare King. "If we want world to be better, we must do better, da?"

"Hope yah know what yah're doing." Bunnymund twists open the egg and tosses the locket towards Pitch, with the air of one handling dirty laundry. Pitch snatches it out of the air and tries not to be too obviously relieved that _finally_ they gave in. The locket fits just so into the tight curl of his fingers; the whirls of filigree etched into the gold stand out under the pad of his thumb.

He's never held it before, yet it feels like it's part of him.

How could he have not noticed he was missing a piece of him?

. . . Except, perhaps, he had. Every time he reached for something that wasn't there. Without thinking, he raises it to his chest, just above his heart and below his collar bones, and wraps a thick cord of blackest shadow about his neck to keep it there.

Kelpie whickers and curls her neck around him and he realizes he has missed time, that the Guardians are staring at him as if awaiting a response. The locket hangs framed by his coat collar, warm against his skin, and it's only the knowledge of his watching audience that keeps him from tucking it out of sight completely.

Pitch raises his chin and sets one hand on the nightmare's nose, calming her. He refuses to fawn at the Guardian's feet for returning what's obviously his.

North clears his throat once, then tries again, "Well. Looks like fit, da?"

"Don't think I'm agreeing to anything, North," Pitch cautions.

"Of course not." But North ducks his head like he's hiding a smile in his beard, which is simply ridiculous in a man of his age and size.

Jack kicks off from the floor restlessly. "So, we done here?"

"Da, I think so." North nods, "We stay in touch. Patrols as before."

"Yeah, yeah." Jack slings his staff over his shoulder, "I want to check on Jamie."

"That- that is very good idea."

Sanderson nods, then points to Pitch and himself as well. Pitch's initial reaction is to refuse, but Icarus is there. He'd rather not have to revive the heavy nightmare after tangling with the Sandman again. He swings up to Kelpie's back, pleased at how the Guardians instinctively flinch back from him mounted. "If we must make a party out of it. . ."

"Frostbite. . ." Bunnymund starts, but Sanderson shakes his head, giving an encouraging thumbs up. "Be careful."

"Sure, Kangaroo. Sandy's got my back." Jack patters over to Pitch and nudges him with his staff. Pitch tries not to flinch at the sudden rush of cold. "Come on, time's wasting. Let's get a move on."

"What?"

"Hey, you're the one who can teleport. It's faster than flying. Take us there." Jack's pushing it, he obviously knows it, but there's no good reason for Pitch to refuse, either. North watches with judging eyes, saying nothing.

Pitch grimaces and gives in with ill grace. "Fine." He ignores the pleased look North shares with the others. He nudges Kelpie forward, letting the two Guardians fall in behind him.

He can hear Toothiana murmur something to Jack that makes him laugh brightly, and the winter spirit is still tossing off cheerful reassurances as all three are swallowed by shadow.

 

They emerge in moonlight after a plunge through complete darkness that always reminds him of space- what? He's never. . . Unless he has.

Pitch lifts one hand to press at the locket, to feel the shape digging in and leaving filigree imprints in his skin, the way it's already marking its shape on his mind. No doubt if he takes it off the results would be diminished, but he won't risk being parted with it now. He'll just have to manage this little errand until he can be alone.

Kelpie keeps walking on down the tree-lined street, covering his momentary reeling. Luckily his passengers are likewise disoriented; the Sandman looking vaguely ill while Jack whistles up a breeze to hover on.

"I'd rather take that over being dumped in a sack and shoved through a magic portal, but that's still way creepier than the tunnels and the sleigh. Sorry, guys, I think I prefer the wind."

Pitch takes a second to unravel that little dialogue, something reminding him of North's earlier comment. "Did North . . .?"

"Oh yeah, he got some yetis to give me the old heave-ho."

Sanderson is nodding as well, and raises his eyes heavenward. Like the only one who has any chance of stopping North in full swing is the Man in the Moon. Pitch doubts even that.

"Really." Pitch shakes his head. "And still you signed on with them."

"Hey, can't help my nature," Jack shrugs. Indeed, he's already leaving frost behind, white glazing over the grass and windows as they pass. The wind he called is brisk, sending autumn leaves scattering before them.

The Sandman rises on a cloud of sand to dip his tiny fingers into the golden streams arching overhead, then points them onwards to the east. Pitch needs no directions, as he can sense his nightmare quite close by, but Jack nods and zips off. "Meet you there!"

Sanderson looks after the frost spirit with tolerant amusement, then stares at Pitch with disconcertingly close attention. Kelpie senses his discomfort and shifts nervously, dancing and shying sideways until he firmly corrects her course. "What?"

Sanderson spins the cloud into his own mount of an immense wide-eyed goldfish, rising up to eye-level. He points to Pitch, the locket, and makes a question mark.

"Is it working? How should I know." Pitch looks away, as good as ignoring the dreamweaver until Sanderson sails his fish in front of him, shakes his head, and forms a quick series of squiggles.

"How should I recognize something I can't remember, you daft idiot." The words are out of his mouth before he realizes that . . . he both understood the question and answered it by doing so. Pitch snaps his jaw closed. Sanderson looks immensely pleased with himself, the prat.

Likely because he's finally found at least one being in the world that can actually understand his text, enemy or not. Pitch huffs in annoyance, then halts Kelpie outside a familiar-looking window. Despite the hour and chill, it's already wide open, and Frost is making no effort to be quiet. Not that he would. "We're here."

The Sandman simply floats up through the window, his fish unraveling into streamers as he goes. Pitch dismounts and takes the expedience of the shadows, stepping out by the boy's bedroom wall. Jack is sitting on the edge of a dresser, kicking his heels while carrying on an animated conversation with the boy Jamie- and a blonde child who must be his sister. Monty is not in evidence, but he is only a mile away, under the watchful hoof and eye of Icarus. (And _his_ believer will never be the first target of the nightmares. Monty's pragmatic nature and Pitch's own favor will see to that.)

So instead the Guardians fuss over . . . him. Their last light. Pitch folds his arms and waits, to see how long it will take the intrepid fool to acknowledge him this time.

Which is why he is completely surprised when the girl tugs on Jamie's arm from where she's sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed. She points directly at Pitch, "Jamie, what is that?"

Well well well. He sweeps forward, "What, not who? You wound me, child." Pitch's smile is all melodrama, one hand clasped to his chest. "But that is a very perceptive question."

Jamie trades looks with Jack, the silent exchange of "He came with you" versus "But she's your sister." Jack hesitates a moment too long, obviously not yet forgiving the incident of five years ago. Jamie speaks up first, "Sophie, they call him the Black General. He can control the nightmares."

Is that what it is now? He's had worse. It fits better than the sloughed-off skin of the Boogeyman.

Sophie's nose wrinkles as she hops off the bed and walks up to Pitch. "Then, who are you?"

She must be all of eight, and while naive, looks fear in the face. He can't say he's had that reception in a very long time. He drops to one knee and gives an extravagant bow that feels entirely natural. "For you, my dear, Kozmotis."

"Why do you make nightmares?" She's not accusing, simply curious.

Still on one knee, he tilts his head as he considers his response. A direct honest question deserves an honest answer. "I don't make them. People do, when they dream their fears."

"Why?" Oh, the age-old child's response. He finds himself surprisingly willingly to humor her. She reminds him of the child who saw him in Tokyo, wide-eyed earnest behind her curtain of gold hair.

"Because fears are both easier and harder to face in dreams." He draws a handful of black dream sand from his shadow, flipping between his fingers like a trick coin. "Fear creeps into dreams easily, but if it can be beaten there. . . well. . ." He clenches his fist and banishes the black sand back to the shadow. He turns over his empty hand, fingers splayed.

"Oh." Sophie turns to her brother, "So he's important, too?"

And that's when Pitch realizes both Jamie and Jack are staring at him like an unusual zoo attraction. He rises smoothly to his feet, folding his hands together. "Some people think so."

"Yeah, you would." Jack breathes out, loosening a white-knuckle grip on his staff. "We should let you two get back to sleep, huh?"

Jamie shrugs and smiles, eyes entirely on the two Guardians. "I don't mind staying up."

The Sandman whisks up an image of beds and bright dolphin dreams, and Jamie laughs. "I know you'll give us sweet dreams, Sandman. I just. . . it's nice to see you guys while I can."

Jack fidgets. "I know, I know. We've just got a lot to do right now." He smiles weakly, "Big stuff, looking after the world."

Sophie tugs on Jack's hand, "You'll come visit?"

"Yeah, sure thing." Jack grins. "It's not even Halloween yet, right? I'll be here a lot more in just a few weeks." He lifts his eyes to give Pitch a canny look. "I bet we can get everything squared away by wintertime."

"Optimist," Pitch scoffs.

"Cynic."

"What was it—oh yes. I can't help my nature." Pitch smirks as Jack makes a face, recognizing the words.

Jamie looks like he's watching a tennis match. "So you guys are . . .?"

"Working on it." Jack nods firmly. "We've got to go for now, all right? But we'll be right here if you need us."

"Uh. Sure." Jamie looks at Pitch, unexpectedly serious. "I'll make sure Monty knows too, right?"

"Good." Pitch steps back towards the darker shadows. His eyes gleam from the darkness. "He'll be safer than you."

He fades out of the room back to the street where Kelpie waits, not one for elaborate goodbyes, especially when this is merely a glorified check-in. There, errand done. Perhaps now he can finally leave the Guardians behind and find some peace.

Jack spirals out on the breeze, touching down on the ball of one foot in front of him. "Huh, okay, that was . . . unexpected."

Pitch resigns himself to having company for at least another handful of minutes. If he doesn't satisfy the boy's curiousity now he'll just be subjected to it later when he runs into the Guardian again. Which seems inevitable at this point. "In what way?"

"Like I think an eight-year-old girl just got more out of you in about two seconds than the Guardians did all night."

"I think that says more about your technique than hers."

"Or you're just a total sap for little girls?" Jack mocks as the Sandman drifts back out to join them, thin streams of golden sand drifting behind him. Jack kicks up his feet, hovering on the wind. "What made you pick the new name, anyways?"

"You should realize by now there's no choice of my own involved." Pitch beckons Kelpie to him, flattening his palm against her nose. Really, has he forgotten his own history so quickly? The Moon named Jack Frost. No one named Pitch. Pitch is just who he is.

"So it's the kids who named you? The Black General, I get, with the new duds. But what's up with Kozmotis?"

For an instant, he can't breathe as his heart _twists_. . . Evidently equilibrium is going to be hard to come by.

"That . . . is an excellent question."

Kelpie noses his chest hard, incidentally nudging the locket. Pitch finds himself clutching it protectively, talons digging into the heel of his palm. When he raises his eyes, Jack stutters back midair. From the Sandman, there is no tremor. He merely watches. Waiting.

Pitch stalks towards the diminutive Guardian, intent. "That's not a name I've heard before, and it's certainly not a name the Moon gave me. You knew it. So, where did it come from?"

The dreamweaver doesn't back down; if anything he looks—sad. He points to Pitch in answer.

That's. . . It should be impossible.

He distantly recognizes that the wind has grown very cold, that his shadow has grown to cover the ground in sharp vicious snarls. His teeth grind together, eyes narrow slits. The Sandman might as well be sculpted of sand in truth, for all he reveals his reaction.

"You knew. This entire time." Pitch barely breathes, each word dripping malevolence. "You knew who I was!"

At last, Sanderson allows an image to grow, the bright sigils that he recognizes inherently as _Kozmotis_ , then a simple did-not-equal sign . . . and his own previous silhouette.

Pitch does not quite spit his response, " _That_ is your justification?"

The Sandman shakes his head and repeats emphatically, _Kozmotis did not equal the Boogeyman_.

Pitch laughs, and it is cruel and empty as night. "Of course not. How could we be the same, if I don't know who Kozmotis is?"

Jack finally touches down, looking between them like he doesn't know whose side to take. "What? Sandy. . . is it true?"

It's such an obvious question, and it makes something in his already broken insides twist further out of alignment. Of course this would be when Jack understands him; that moment when the rug is torn from beneath him and someone else holds all the answers. Withholds all the answers.

Pitch bares his teeth in something that is not a smile. "Aren't you glad you chose to side with the _heroes_ , Jack? The pure and morally righteous." He steps back, sweeping his hands wide. "Of course you can sleep like angels, because you know in your heart you are _good_."

Jack makes an abortive moment, reaching out one hand. The nightmare snarls behind him, an entirely un-horse-like noise, and the winter spirit goes ever more pale. Sanderson floats forward to pat Jack reassuringly, protective as always, and this is all more than Pitch can be expected to bear.

Pitch spurns them both.

He sweeps onto the nightmare, shadows thick and billowing about him like a cloak. From his vantage, he glares down at them with wolf-amber eyes.

"Fight your own battles."

Pitch digs in his heels and the nightmare bolts straight between the two Guardians with a scream, knocking them aside. He tears into the darkness, dives for the deep shadows, where no light can find him.

He is entirely done with the Guardians and their self-serving hypocritical _virtue_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAHAHA NINE IS DONE. Oh my god. 13.5 pages. So very many thank yous to Flidget, especially for betaing via smartphone on vacation, because . . . wow. We did two rounds of edits on this monster and I was still batting back and forth bits up until posting.  
> Many many thank yous to all of you who read, and especially that no one got upset about my being late but me. 
> 
> I am forewarning you all that there will be no update next week, and we'll shoot for the Friday two weeks from now, because the next chapter is epic boss battle time! The end is near!


	11. Balancing act

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He never claimed to be an acrobat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah- sorry I'm late, folks! This was one that required rewrites and second edits, so many thanks to my beta Flidget for putting up with me, even through my torrents of commas.

**Ten**

Balancing act. _(He never claimed to be an acrobat.)_

 

He barricades himself in under countless layers of earth, stone, and sand. He of all people knows the lair beneath the world is not safe. Not truly his, not yet. Kelpie he releases to do as she will, because as much as the company would be comforting, Pitch does not trust himself to not lash out at the undeserving.

What he deserves is a matter for debate.

He is nothing but a shadow enveloped in the deepest dark, alone with his thoughts.

That is not as reassuring as it should be.

His thoughts seethe and churn, ebb and flow like storm-tossed tides: at the forefront there is the crashing breaker that _he was wrong_. He had been wrong, all along—he had _been_.

How could he have not known? Who was Kozmotis then? Did it even matter? It must have been so very, very long since that point of departure. He has forgotten entire periods of time since what he thought was his genesis, in the way of all immortals who exist for so long worn so thin.

The locket is working on him even now, locked in the cage of his fingers, and he cannot decide whether to embrace it or consign it to the depths of Earth's molten core where even the Rabbit cannot retrieve it.

Does he truly want to remember? What path led him here from the stars? No tale that ends with the Nightmare King can be considered a good one. He knows. . . he knows. . .

He closes his eyes against the dark and scoffs. He knows nothing.

 

How long did he spend in the abyss of indecision?

How long before he heard hooves on stone, echoing through the barrier of sand that surrounds him?

For an instant, fear licks at him—nothing but his own anticipation, instantly squashed when he hears what he distinctly did not expect but should have: an annoyingly familiar voice.

"I'm guessing we're here. Thanks." He can almost imagine the whisper of callused soles touching down, the youngest Guardian no doubt patting the nightmare. "Y'know, for a creepy pony, you're not so bad."

He doesn't have to guess which nightmare it is that whickers back at him. The sound of Kelpie's hooves retreats to a safe distance, likely keeping watch. Leaving the Guardian alone in the echoing cavern Pitch had chosen as his retreat.

If he chose, he could part the sand barrier, step out and confront the Guardian. He could watch from the shadows. Instead he does nothing, curled into the darkness, and waits for Jack to either speak his piece or leave.

It doesn't take long; Jack paces the edge of the hall, the faint drag of his staff giving away his progress. No doubt he's leaving frost patterns behind him, letting his power provide illumination in this place of no light. That brightness presses against his senses as an almost tangible thing. Despite himself, he's aware of the shifting shapes Jack casts, a shadow puppet dancing across the familiar stage of stone.

"Hey, Pitch. Your maze kind of sucks." Jack sounds conversational, casually scuffing his feet. "Yeah, your pony let me in, but down here? All I had to do to find you was pick the way I least wanted to go."

"Navigating by fear, y'know?" Jack's voice stops, and his shadow leans close to the bars cast from the hanging cages, the ones he now knows are tarnished and rusted from their former splendor (which had always struck him as strange but perhaps ironic justice, to keep something so dark wrapped in so much light and he _does not know this_ these are not his thoughts—)

The light dims and he loses track of Jack's progress, his shadow melding into the greater darkness. He must have missed something Jack said, because when he speaks again, his voice comes from a different part of the room. His shadow traipses along one of the arched bridges, walking the railing like a tightrope with nonchalant grace.

"Yeah, I know you're in here." Jack laughs, knowing but not unkind. "Because you want to be alone, to be safe."

Jack snorts, hopping off the rail. There's a dizzying moment where his shadow flies alone along the wall before reconnecting with the boy on the cavern floor. Then it all goes dark, leaving him blind once more. "You're just as predictable as I was."

To be fair, Pitch hadn't known that Jack considered Antarctica his home away from home. It had been an educated guess, from what little he knew about the frost spirit. It had paid off- until it didn't. Pitch scowls in the dark and silently wills the Guardian to grow tired and leave him alone with his thoughts. He has enough to occupy him without interruptions.

Naturally, that's when Jack finds him.

His well-protected hiding spot, at least.

"Whoa, okay, this is new. Pretty sure this is new." Jack's voice echoes oddly from below as he circles the angular shape of the cage, followed by a reverberating thunk as Jack raps his staff against the smooth surface of black sand enveloping it. "Isn't this a little over-dramatic, Pitch? Roosting in one of the cages? I bet you're in there and this isn't just the Nightmares redecorating."

Jack deliberately swats the crook of his staff against the cage's side, ringing it like a bell. Pitch cringes and curls his hands over his ears as if that would help. Of course Jack would come abuse him into granting an audience. It's just as well the cold doesn't much affect him, or the brat would try to freeze him out.

"C'mon, Pitch, come out and play. I'm pretty sure you're not turning into a butterfly, so give the chrysalis a rest." Jack pauses thoughtfully, "Well, you could be. I don't know what you used to be."

Pitch scoffs to himself. At least that much is doubtful. He was a soldier—

He grimaces and deliberately peels his fingers off the locket, letting it fall under his uniform collar. He refuses to think about why the motion feels so very familiar.

Jack continues on, "I promise not to laugh if you've turned into a damn big black butterfly. . . . Nah, who am I kidding, I'd laugh." There's a brief pause and flicker of light as Jack takes off, the damn idiot perching atop the cage's sloping roof. Jack's shadow twines its hand around the thick chain, his voice sounding from directly overhead. "I figure. . . I figured you could use . . . some company, I guess. Someone who didn't know who or what you were. I would have been pretty pissed, too, if someone knew and didn't tell me."

Jack trails off, only to pick up a different thread a moment later. "Did you even open it yet?"

It opens? No, of course it opens. It's a locket, after all, and inside—

He shuts his eyes tightly and grits his teeth in silence.

He's certainly not about to do it _now_ , with Jack bloody Frost overhead on the other side of a foot of solid-packed nightmare sand.

"I was afraid to open mine," Jack admits softly, like it's any shock to the Nightmare King that Jack Frost's worst fear was finding himself as unworthy as everyone else seemed to think he was. "Stupid, right? What I wanted was right there in my hands, but I couldn't do it. Baby Tooth had to give me the courage to open it and find out who I was."

Oh, yes, the mini fairy that had virtually adopted the brat. Pitch rolls his eyes, absently rubbing at the mark that tiny sharp beak had left behind. Does Jack realize he's casting himself in her role? The plucky encouraging side-kick? He sneers into the shadows. That is one thing the Nightmare King past or present never had a need for.

"I keep thinking, I never knew what I was missing, for three hundred years. That's a long time. But you. . ." Jack's voice fades into uncertainty. "You're one of the oldest. That's even worse."

Yes. He is. If Jack thinks three hundred years is a long time, he wouldn't be able to comprehend the spans Pitch has lived.

"Knowing who you are, that's . . . really important. Something no one should take away from you. I don't think you need me to tell you what to do."

And somehow, _that_ is the last straw.

Pitch snaps and steps forward through the shadows like parting a rippling curtain, stalking out of the darkness onto a bridge behind Jack. True to form, the brat has spread frost across the room; the bridges and cages are encased in white-glowing sculptures of dripping icicles. Pitch may have found it pretty elsewhere; now he can only see Frost encroaching on what is _his_.

"But isn't that what you're doing, Jack?" Pitch bites out. Jack jumps, satisfyingly startled. "Isn't that what you Guardians love to do? To tell everyone what's good and proper?"

Jack nearly fumbles his staff in spinning to face him, coming to his feet atop the cage encased in black sand. "No, Pitch, that's-"

"No, don't be sanctimonious with me. You came to have your word. To assuage your guilt by association." Pitch folds his arms, well aware his shadow is dancing on the wall behind him.

"Argh, would you just listen?" Jack kicks off the cage, floating on an impossible breeze before him. "I don't want to fight you. I came to ask for your help. The nightmares are getting worse and something's going to happen soon, I know it."

"What, you can feel it? In your belly?" Pitch laughs, harsh and mocking. "No, as novel as the idea of a Guardian come begging to me is, I think I've made my position quite clear."

He knows his parting declaration still rings in the Guardian's ears when he blanches. Jack lands in front of him, hands white-knuckle tight on his staff. "I heard you. But we need you."

Pitch quirks up a corner of his mouth, "There's your mistake."

Jack braces his feet against the floor, not quite shrinking back as if he knows he's in for it.

Pitch leans forward, deliberately menacing. " _I_ don't need _you_."

Jack flinches and ducks behind his staff as Pitch swallows the Guardian in his shadow, warping them both to the surface to deposit the brat on his backside in a cold forest beneath the watchful light of a half-moon.

He stays hidden, nothing but eyes in the dark as Jack picks himself up slowly.

He almost thinks he imagines the rueful chuckle as Jack tilts his head back, seeming to address the sky through the bare branches, "Yeah, that could have gone better."

 

He doesn't have to wait to watch the winter spirit take to the wind, but he does. To be sure his unwanted guest is gone before returning to the dark, he tells himself. The cavern he'd sought refuge in no longer feels safe, wreathed in icicles and frost that will take weeks to melt. He dissolves his black dream sand ramparts with a dismissive gesture, then takes to stalking the halls.

Kelpie joins him, a silent retainer at his elbow, his only company as the labyrinth shifts around him. Corridors realign, stairwells rotate, and he finds himself recreating the path he took fleeing from the nightmares.

He ends up on the spiral stairs beneath the abandoned well, with the pale grey of dawn filtering down along with the fresh air. Here, the moon has already set.

Pitch pauses at the landing where he lay gasping for days, gathering up the strength of will and wherewithal to venture back into the mortal world.

He meant to do this in isolation. In the pure dark of his namesake. As safe from fear as he could manage. Perhaps. . . this is better. The balance between terror and safety.

Pitch glances back at Kelpie, and smirks wryly at the nightmare's obvious confusion. "If I go barking mad, I strongly suggest you run."

The nightmare stamps, tilting her head, but Pitch is already pulling out the locket. A delicate, practiced movement flips the lid open. In the first golden light of morning, he knows he should see inside—

_"She has your eyes."_

_"And your nose."_

_He laughs, because he knows perfectly well it's unfortunate. "No one will ever doubt she's mine, will they?"_

_"Of course not." She falls silent, and leans into his chest, her arms wrapped around their daughter. He folds his arms around her in turn, their entire family held close. "She's beautiful."_

_"Yes."_

_And that is the last word he will ever accept on the matter._

 

_They keep giving him medals. Awards. Accolades. His dress uniform is frankly ridiculous. He hates it to the depths of his soul. Each shiny bit of tawdry he earns- he can think of another who deserves it many times more. And when they finally let him retire those tired bits of gold, after one last command performance, he finds each and every grave and final resting place of those more-deserving men and women, soldiers and civilians, and gives them their proper honors._

_He deserves no honor for simply being the only one to survive._

 

_She had yelled at him when they last spoke. Cursed him as bitterly as a little girl knows how, and left angrily before he could gather himself to say a single word in response. Not in defense, no. He had not been there when she died. Duty is no excuse for deserting his wife in her last moments. Especially not such desperate ones._

_He grieves, and worse, he fears that he has lost his daughter, too._

_When he finally stands before her, he stays absolutely still beside the military transport, afraid that one move will tip the balance and she will flee him forever. He meets her eyes, her mother's eyes, and can see his little girl's heart breaking. He hurts, for her, for his lost beloved, for them all._

_At last, she does break._

_He could not be more relieved that it is to bolt into his arms. He cradles her close, lets her tears soak his uniform with complete disregard for the honors and medals there, and buries his face in her hair. "I'm here."_

 

_"I could ask for no better man."_

_He closes his eyes against the bitter truth. There is open regret in the Tzar's face, plain in his words, but they both know the harsh realities of leadership. He is no stranger to grim battlefield sacrifices. This seems colder somehow._

_He knows what is being asked of him. This is a life sentence. A death sentence._

_He can't bring himself to say aloud, 'You mean there is no one else' or it would sound like a question, a shirking of duty. No, he knows his role here, even in the privacy of the Tzar's office. A small mercy, on the off chance that he could not bring himself to shoulder this burden._

_He has won the war, but he will not be able to retire. He will not watch his daughter grow, no longer so little. He will never again be able to visit his wife's grave. The gardens. The Constellations._

_Instead, he opens his eyes, raises his head, and says firmly, "As always, I would be honored to serve."_

 

_He wakes in a hospital, nearly dizzy with pain before he can even open his eyes. His last memory is the flash of a blade descending when he was already knocked flat on his back, when he had no possibility of blocking. He knows to his core that he is lucky to be alive, and even luckier- his wife is clinging to his hand. She scolds him, tears she'll never admit to shedding in the corners of her eyes. "Don't ever do that again."_

_He winces, finding it beyond him to do more than weakly squeeze her fingers in return. "I'm not planning on it."_

_"They had to put you back together like jigsaw puzzle." She leans over their joined hands, her hair falling forward like a curtain. He has always loved her hair. "I won't lose you."_

_And his heart aches worse than any wound that he cannot promise he will always be able to come back to her._

 

_"Can you make it?"_

_He's bleeding, sweat and worse running into one eye, a raw recruit battered beyond anything training could have ever prepared him for, and he knows he cannot stop. He fixes his gaze on the goal, the exit route beyond the teaming hordes of black shadows, and nods firmly. "I can, sir."_

_"Then go. You won't get any second chances. Believe in this one."_

_He never sees that officer again, but he doesn't forget her last words._

_That's the first time he is the only one to walk away from a battle, but it's not the last._

 

_The first time he saw the woman who would steal his heart, he'd nearly gotten himself killed for losing his focus in battle. When he finally gets the chance to speak with her, he nearly gets killed a second time courtesy of choking on his foot in his mouth._

_Somehow, she doesn't murder him where he stands._

_He never knows how he got so lucky._

 

_Standing with his graduating class, all sharp and bright as freshly-minted gold in their new uniforms. Such high hopes, such certainty they were doing what was right and honorable and necessary to protect their homes and loved ones. Keeping the Constellations safe._

_He hopes he would have made his family proud._

 

_There's more, like bright fragments of a mirror all reflecting different pieces of the same room that fails to make a single coherent image. Here, a pookha hands him a sword. There, he stares reverently at the first sight of the Constellation he'd called home but never truly seen from space. A young man sobs brokenly and he knows loss for the first time. A Fearling laughing over him as it sinks its claws into his back and tears through his flesh. Sharp, heavy resolve as he swears his unprecedented oaths, of the duty he cannot ask anyone else to bear._

 

_His little girl's voice cries out, "Daddy!"_

  
He comes back to himself, the filigreed edges of the locket biting into his fingers, Kelpie nudging his shoulder with worry. Pitch gently flicks the lid closed, hiding the sight of the sharp, time-stained tooth which has taken the place of the portrait of the striking young girl which should be there. As always, reality is a much uglier truth.

He tucks the locket carefully beneath his uniform collar, vaguely annoyed that his current outfit seems to have shifted slightly to bring it more in line with what the Constellations would recognize. The Black General. He snorts quietly at the irony, then pats Kelpie's neck before mounting.

"I think we've spent enough time here. Time for darker pastures."

The sun is high and bright now; no way of knowing how much time has passed. Hours, days. That's a rather disturbing trend for him, on the whole, and one he'd rather be done with. The nightmare needs no further urging to walk on, passing through shadow to a deserted beach on the dark half of the planet.

They are far from humans, from the light pollution that obscures the best views of the cosmos.

From what had been a glorious, riotous mass of color, he can now pick out shapes, name constellations, nebulae, planets, moons. Which had been occupied, which had been overrun, their strategic strength and importance. Their political stances.

All celestial ages out of date, and most certainly not the current state of things after he'd had his way with them as the Nightmare King. Useless.

Pitch scowls at the night sky as Kelpie walks the divide between land and sea, toying with the surf. He can never _forget_ what Kozmotis knows.

What a waste of beauty.

Well, now he knows. He was certainly _someone_.

He has roughly one thirty-second of a lifetime. The best. The worst. In no particular order, with even more obliquely referenced events he knows from the edges or shadows they cast, but cannot recall why he does. Like picking up a book and flipping through the pages, only stopping to read highlights on scattered pages. Some of the scenes are incomplete, and worst of all—he does not know how or why the story ends, but it can't be well.

The ending is him, after all.

"A _hero_." Pitch laughs at himself, glad the moon is dark when he looks upwards. There is no one to answer his mocking, "Did you know? What became of your precious general?"

Thousands of years of orchestrating slaughter and bloodshed and oppression, that's what. Of course he made a fine conductor; he'd been trained by nothing but the best.

Kozmotis had been the best.

Pitch grimaces and forces his hands to stop clenching Kelpie's mane. The nightmare doesn't deserve his ire towards Kozmotis.

He is not that man.

How unfortunate for the Guardians, for the world, that he is a monster, not a martyr.

 

There's nothing really scary about Halloween. Jamie's always loved it alongside all of his other favorite holidays, because even though there's no one spirit for it, this is the day everyone dresses up and believes there might be something else beyond their imagination.

Halloween's the day when everyone plays pretend, and somehow that makes the spirits more real by comparison.

This year it falls on a Friday, so he wears a blue hoodie and khaki shorts with flip flops to school and shares quick grins with his friends when they recognize the outfit. When they all meet up at the park to go trick or treating, he's switched to something a little more ambitious. Sophie had her heart set on being a fairy warrior princess (He has no idea where she got that idea from, not at all), so naturally, he has to be a dragon.

Not that he's seen one yet, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, right? Somewhere out there. He knows if he just believes, he might see one, one day.

They've got a house rule of no store-bought costumes, so they've been working with Mom for weeks now to get everything together. Sophie's dressed like a rainbow explosion in a feather factory with her wings on, and Jamie's gone all green. Sophie couldn't stop giggling the entire time she painted his face, "like an egg." He doesn't care if it's not perfect; they had _fun_.

Caleb, decked out like a zombie, hails him with an apparently rotting hand, "Mutant Statue of Liberty?"

"Dragon!" Jamie grins, "Can't you see it?" He spins to display the home-made stuffed tail, the cardboard wings and horns. He's pretty proud of the horns, actually.

Caleb laughs and punches him in the arm, "Sure thing, Trogdor. And Soph?"

Sophie proceeds to take center stage and explains her character's story with all the serious an eight-year old girl can muster. Monty waves at him shyly from the back of the group, in a pieced-together Jedi ensemble that actually looks pretty solid. Jamie's proud of him for coming with them, after everything that's happened. They still need to get out and have fun, too.

The group turns up in fits and spurts with various younger siblings attached: they end up with a ninja, a Jedi, a dragon, a fairy, a pair of zombies, a mad scientist, a rock star, and some other things Jamie can't identify immediately.

Pippa doesn't . . . look that different from usual, actually. Jamie wanders over to ask, "Hey, Pip. What's your costume?"

Pippa replies quickly, "I'm playing chaperone for Molly. I'm not really trick or treating."

"Really?" Jamie asks. She's only a few years older than them, a senior now. "But don't you want to have fun while you can?"

Pippa raises an eyebrow and looks at his outfit, "That's fun?"

Jamie shrugs, deliberately waving his wings. "Sure. We made them ourselves."

"And it looks like it, too." Pippa sighs. "Jamie, when are you going to grow up?"

"There's nothing wrong with liking being a kid," Jamie tries not to let the hurt enter his voice. Not this conversation again. It's just Pippa. She's always wanted to be an adult, even when she was the third grader leading him and all the other first graders to the bus stop for the first time.

"You're not Peter Pan, Jamie." Pippa steps backwards, already moving on. "Some day you're going to have to get your head out of the clouds and come back down to earth with the rest of us. There's no such thing as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny."

Monty casts him a quick look from over Sophie's head and Jamie smiles wanly in return. Monty still believes, but the others. . . One by one. They don't even remember that night they saved the Guardians, except maybe as a story or a dream. He's stopped trying to fight with them over it, because there's no changing their minds.

The worst part is, he knows. He knows she's right. There's going to be a day when he too _grows up_ \- when he tells himself that he has to stop chasing fairies and dreams.

When he stops believing.

When he'll stop being able to see the Guardians.

Worse, he might even forget he ever did. Like Pippa.

Jamie watches the brightly colored group of kids come together under the park's street lights, laughter and happy voices turning into meaningless but bright background noise. Sophie is chirping at Monty now, displaying the feathers in her hair while he tries to keep a straight face.

He should be in there with them, having fun, enjoying everything about his childhood he can before it's taken from him, but it's like a dark curtain cuts him off from joining the festivities. He should be happy, but all he feels is . . . hurt. Empty. Afraid.

Waving his flashlight over his head like he's directing traffic, Caleb hollers, "Come on, guys, let's move out! We've got a lot of houses to hit and one night to do it!"

He's greeted by a rough cheer that Jamie can't join. When the trick or treaters flood out of the park, Jamie stays, rooted in place, forgotten in the shadows.

Pippa's words echo in the back of his head.

He doesn't want to grow up.

He doesn't want to stop believing.

He doesn't want to change.

 

That is all the opening the Grim needs.

The monstrous nightmare stalks him, appearing from behind him, then circling through the crowd of children streaming past, ever closer. Jamie can barely breathe for the paralyzing fear. He wants to cry out for the others to wait, to help. He wants to believe someone can save him. Except, right now, all he can feel is terrified.

The enormous wolf's head stops right before him, golden eyes boring into him. _If he doesn't want change, if he never wants to grow up. . . he never has to._

No one waits for him. No one saves him. No one with the eyes to see witnesses the nightmare swallowing the former last light whole.

Jamie is rendered blind, bruised and battered by the dark in a way that has nothing to do with physical wounds. It is like falling into a tornado of black sand that scours away his hopes, his dreams, his beliefs. In its place, the nightmare wraps around him, presses in, and whispers, _you are afraid_. _You were alone. Not anymore. Now, you are me_.

It is a very, very long fall.

They do not so much hit bottom as stabilize. Spread wings made of shadow and glide to a new understanding. The black sand billows, writhes and swells in size. A long neck arches up like a cobra, lips curling away from a dagger-filled maw even more dangerous than the wolf's. At last, something that is both more and less than human, more and less than nightmare, opens its golden eyes.

Its gaze tracks the last of the brightly-dressed children still streaming away down the street, blithely unaware of the danger behind them.

Like all newborns, it is hungry.

 

An ocean away, walking the streets of a small town just before dawn, Pitch's head raises like a hound catching a scent.

There is something. . . Very old. Very familiar.

He has never been able to recognize it from so far away before, but _his_ memories have a name for it before he does. The Enemy. A Fearling.

A mortal, fallen into shadow.

Never has this planet seen one truly unleashed. Not with the power and scope this one brings to bear. Pitch lets his breath hiss out between his teeth.

Unbidden, a storm of shadow and heavy limping footsteps herald the arrival of Icarus. The nightmare bears significant damage, claw marks scoring through his flanks like someone had used it to sharpen its talons. One of its fore legs looks gnawed on by rather immense teeth.

All in all, Pitch muses silently, this does not bode well. "My believer?"

The nightmare holds steady, making no response.

"The Guardian's little wonder, then?"

Icarus breaths out a long gusty sigh, head lowering.

"Damn."

 

A fearling. . . Pitch frowns, eyes not truly seeing the wounded nightmare before him, unmoved by the brisk wind whipping at his coat. In all his reign here, he hasn't allowed a single nightmare to become so strong as to overpower a human. To become like _him_.

Pitch smiles, empty and sharp. That is what he is, isn't it? Nothing but the fears that overtook one man. They are so very deceiving, fearlings. Sharp, fast, and dangerous; the depths of a soul turned inside out, lurking beneath the face of a friend. All the little darkling poppet has to do is turn its limpid eyes on the Guardians and say "Please help me, I'm so scared" and, well. . .

They'll never know what hit them.

He's tempted to turn up to watch, for that moment of horrible realization alone. The Guardian's failure would taste so sweet.

Though if it's already torn into his nightmare protector like that, chances are the cat is already out of the bag. And if it's faced the nightmare set to protect his believer. . .

Strange. He can't feel Monty's fear.

That raises his hackles more than anything else.

That upstart newborn fearling is stealing _his_ fear. Blocking his believers from him. Poaching the Nightmare King's herds. Taking his throne.

If _it_ succeeds against the Guardians where he failed. . . If _it_ takes the Guardians' fear. . .

Icarus suddenly leans in, lips curling back in interest. Pitch hisses, "Behave. I'm not giving up on the crown just yet."

Perhaps he can't face the fearling as the Nightmare King. But he most certainly can take his seat back as the Black General.

Pitch considers the damaged nightmare before him speculatively, already pulling Icarus back with a hand under its chin. "On second thought. . . eat up."

His eyes go half-lidded as he raises and pours his own anxieties into Icarus, absently stroking its great black nose through a litany of _he let it happen he let himself become so weak so powerless can't even hold one believer can't handle the Guardians much less a fearling he has sunk so low he became this_. "We have a long night ahead of us. And you're going to need company."

 

With the nightmare sand surging and rolling in the shadows of his lair, he could animate a thousand nightmares. If there is anything his little fiasco against the Guardians proved, it's the value of quality over quantity. He could make as many nightmares as he liked, but what did it matter, if he couldn't control them? If each was as easily dismissed as a swipe of a blade or a happy thought from a child?

What he has in mind is rather more modest in scale and far more grandiose in power.

He dismounts Kelpie, leaves her like an uneven bookend besides the much larger Icarus, and orders them, "Watch."

He has to trust their loyalty will hold. He cannot dare think anything else, or he'll lose everything before he even starts.

Before he can falter, he closes his eyes and cracks wide the depths of his heart.

He does nothing so kind as dream.

 

_"Daddy!" A girl, his little girl, screaming desperately for him from behind the doors. He cannot bear to hear her, so lost and alone amongst such monsters. He knows what they can do, and what he would give to protect her from all that they represent. Hate. Terror. Pain._

_Everything would be too small a price to pay to keep her safe._

_He nearly fumbles the keys in his haste to break through the door-_

_Which slams shut behind him._

_The only light emanates from the golden cage in which he stands and she is gone, gone, never there. . . He pays his debts to the sea of shadow._

_"Falling for such a simple trap. . . Really, I thought you were supposed to be smarter than that." Pitch tsks. "Better than that. Better than all the rest of them."_

_Pitch stalks around the cage, surveying the golden-armored General. He hasn't truly seen Kozmotis before, but this, this is undoubtedly him, in all his valiant splendor. Kozmotis doesn't have the decency to look broken, to know he's been defeated. Pitch purrs, "I know you, Kozmotis. . . "_

_And suddenly he is the one staring out from behind the bars, heart beating fast but hands steady as he watches the monster with his face sneer, "You never were the hero they claimed, were you? Just a man. As flawed and foolish as the rest of them."_

_He-as-Kozmotis lifts his chin and challenges back, "You say you know me, but do you know yourself?"_

_And he can't tell the difference between them—jailed and jailor hero and villain shadow and light—_

He wakes.

The results stand before him, a nightmare pair just as poorly matched as his nightmares on four legs behind him. Pitch surveys the first: a slight young woman, veiled, in a dress of tattered shadow that in myth ought to be white. She floats rather than stands, taloned hands curling at her sides. She weeps, and the bottom of his heart quails. Pitch sets his jaw and ignores it; he has no patience for these old and aggravating emotions that belong to memory.

"Lamia. Called La Llorona, White Lady, langsuir, aswang." A smile he doesn't feel curls his lips. He certainly knows which is Kozmotis's contribution. "How appropriate for the fear of losing a child."

Beside her. . . a man. Tall, angular, thin, with a nose like a beak and golden eyes like a hawk, garbed in a open robe of black shadow. Pitch's own face smirks back at him rendered in black sand, hands folded behind his back. It is exactly as disquieting as it ought to be.

Pitch does not quite grit out the name, "Doppelganger. Ikiryou. Fetch. Changeling. Fear of losing one's self. Yes, I know you."

He sweeps his hands aside to gesture sharply to Kelpie and Icarus. "Let's go, shall we? We're already fashionably late."

And he is feeling rather under-dressed for an encounter with the kind of claws that nearly gutted the heavy nightmare. Shadows wrap around him and resettle in a weight and heft Kozmotis knows intimately; Pitch resolves not to think about it until after the battle.

His treacherous hand reaches for the golden locket and finds it safe beneath a black shadow breastplate. Pitch glances up to find Lamia astride Kelpie, Doppelganger on Icarus. Four nightmares to his name, against the fearling and its herd.

He stalks forward through pure dark, flanked by his creations. He is not a king. He has no vassals, he has no armies. What he does have is his captains. It will do.


End file.
